Welcome to the A-T-L
This airport hardly needs an introduction. It’s the busiest airport in the world by passenger volume according to a 2026 article published by Airports Council Worldwide with 106.3 million passengers handled in 2025. Until 2020, one of its taxiways was referred to as “Dixie”, which felt like a distinctly Southern detail for this airport sitting smack dab in the middle of Georgia and the heart of the American South.
Delta Airlines calls this airport home, occupying about 80% of the airport’s operations. With five runways, 7.7 million square feet of terminal space, and 155 domestic plus 43 international gates, Atlanta operates at a scale few airports can match. Recreating an airport this large is no small task, but that is exactly what famed Orbx developer Matteo Veneziani has set out to do, and all on his own.
The Whole Package
This scenery includes the whole airport area inside the gates, plus the Delta Headquarters and Renaissance Hotel as nearby POIs. This version from Matteo is a native MSFS 2024 version built using all the latest technologies and methods. While Concourses E and D are missing in this current version, Matteo in a comment on the Orbx forums advised that Concourse E and D expansions will be added in a future update to the product once construction of the real concourses complete.
Exterior and Architectural Detail
Matteo has set out to bring to life the most recent rendition of the airport, and with that, he’s done a brilliant job, of course, minus the previously mentioned Concourses E and D. The two massive 864 foot long canopies lined with thousands of LEDs that are the main focal point of concourse T are included.
Each individual concourse is replicated accurately all the way down to the chocks and cones around the gates. The airsides are filled with life as animated ramp agents move around and tugs with baggage carts whiz by. The jetbridges are complete and realistic, and feature appropriate branding.
Digital signage is present at each gate. The lines on the ground feel painted out with subtle relief. The terminals have basic interiors visible from the cockpit. While detail is minimal and they do appear to be duplicated, it still looks natural and realistic. Matteo hasn’t stopped at the terminal buildings either, he’s included the iconic Fly Delta Jets signage and the surrounding maintenance area.
Other Delta branded maintenance buildings are scattered around the airport, and all just as detailed that truly increase the immersion.
The air traffic control tower is well done with animated radar on top, however, the tower lacks any interior. Due to the height of the tower, this isn’t really noticeable as something that stands out.
The Signature FBO building at midfield is present. The FBO feels alive with a few golf carts out front and animated people. One flaw that stands out to me is there seems to be a lot of what appears to be normal map usage. The cutouts for exterior features like windows and doors seem to be done via a normal map and not hard cut parts of the model.
Added as POIs, Matteo has also included the Renaissance Hotel and the Delta Headquarters building. The hotel features a single finished room with an interior that is done in detail. The interior lobby of the Renaissance Hotel features a basic interior. The Delta Headquarters buildings are accurately reproduced with the Delta Flight Museum featured also. The museum does include the multiple different aircrafts found parked around the lot.
Getting Grounded
The ground textures of this airport are well done. The ground material feels realistic and with appropriate wear. No two alleys around the terminal or airport taxiway areas look the same.
The various airport lines are all crisp and have subtle relief to them making them look truly painted onto the pavement. The line coloring is identical to the real world lines. Matteo has also recreated all the gate numbers on the lead in lines for each gate.
Beautifully done custom taxiway signs are also abundant across the field and in their appropriate locations. The signs produce a soft glow in the dark. Matteo has also modeled the in-ground embedded inset light fixtures in the taxiways and they cast a vibrant and visible glow onto the pavement around them.
Matteo has given the gates a generous amount of clutter with various vehicles and baggage carts, and many Delta branded. There’s also other ground service equipment and vehicles scattered around the gates and in their appropriate positions on the ramp.
Matteo has made available two versions of ground mesh to utilize. One that’s simplified, and one that’s the original. In my time spent with it, there wasn’t any noticeable performance gain or loss between either. The simplified removes a lot of the bumps across the field from the taxiways and makes for a more pleasant taxi experience.
Night Lighting
This airport takes on a whole new personality at night. The lighting is well done and realistic. The intensity isn’t blown out.
The centerpiece canopies at concourse T are lit as in real life and cast a beautiful glow. Taxiway signs cast a gentle glow. While I would have preferred them a little brighter and to cast a glow on the ground around them, they’re still legible and easy to read at night. The in-ground taxiway lights are clearly visible and cast a vivid glow onto the taxiway. Matteo has done an excellent job with these, and they transform the experience of taxiing around this airport at night.
The terminal interiors cast a realistic glow at night, with the ramp lighting a perfect tone and intensity.
The air traffic control tower glows with a beautiful shade of pink, also. The tower features illuminated lighting above and below the cab which adds to the realism.
Matteo has absolutely nailed the glow of the taxiway edge lights and runway centerline and edge lights.
Performance
The test system for this review was an Intel Core i9-10900K, NVIDIA RTX 3070 8GB, and 32GB RAM. Sim settings are scattered between High and Ultra. Performance on the test system using version 1.0.3 was quite good without using frame generation and depending on the aircraft used.
The Fenix Airbus family had a more significant impact on frames versus using the base sim Longitude, but even then it’s a minimal hit for both. Performance on the Longitude was smooth without stutters, but the Fenix would have small stutters when moving the view around. This performance was consistent for each aircraft in the various phases of flight into and out of the airport.
The airport does come with configuration options which can aid in increasing performance, and these options do make an impact. Overall version 1.0.3 is a significant improvement over version 1. Matteo did note that he personally recommends a minimum TLOD of 150 minimum for this field, however, he advised this produces optimal results and notes a lower setting is still OK.
Value for the Money
This airport is currently priced at US$30.02/€25.75/£22.32/$41.69 AUD on Orbx. Researching pricing between both Orbx and Contrail, the other main market competitor, the pricing for ATL is set higher than the highest priced airport on Orbx by two dollars USD. This pricing sits nearly six dollars USD above a comparable large airport from a developer widely regarded as one of the best in the industry, one that also includes full interiors. Orbx products across the board are priced higher than Contrail overall, however.
While understanding the considerable amount of time and effort that goes into each product, this pricing at least to me seems a little higher than one would expect compared to the other market offerings that are similar in airport size and what those products offer, however, It’s still one that I’d make the personal decision to purchase. Matteo is a well known developer with an impressive portfolio of work, and his work is consistent, so you always know what to expect and what you’re getting with one of his airports. The ramp immersion is also outstanding, which is what personally matters to me.
Final Verdict
Matteo has brought the busiest airport in the world to life in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and he’s done an outstanding job on it. It’s a very welcome offering to the market, and one that has been needed. This one to me sits on my must buy list. The only drawbacks I can really point out are the lack of interiors for some parts, and lack of more substantial interiors for the terminal and then what appears to be the normal map usage. I personally would prefer to see a configuration option for some static aircraft scattered around the airport to bring more life to the airport, as for some flying with AI traffic isn’t always possible due to performance hits, or some prefer to maybe not fly online using a network like VATSIM.
