The aircraft manufacturer names are now dynamic, and follow historical changes.
There have been various mergers of aircraft manufacturers throughout the history and this new small feature aims to model these changes. The update is part of the fleet commonality v.2.0 update, and with this change we can make the fleet commonality bonuses work even more accurately than before.
Example #1: Dornier and Fairchild-Dornier were previously separate manufacturers in the database, but have now been merged, with a name change from Dornier to Fairchild Dornier in 1996 following the buyout. This allows you to benefit from fleet commonality manufacturer bonuses if you fly Dornier 328 and Fairchild-Dornier 528/728/928.
Example #2: In 1997 Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merge, thus all McD
aircraft are being manufactured by Boeing after that date. However since
there is no actual manufacturer commonality involved, since both
companies retained their own production lines and systems, there is no
manufacturer bonus in fleet commonality for opearating B737 and MD-80
series after the merger, but you do get a bonus for operating B717 and MD-80/90 ( = situation remains the same as before the
merger).
Example #3: Bombardier sold the Cseries development to Airbus in 2018, thus creating the Airbus A220. The manufacturer name changes only for this aircraft series, and not for other Bombardier aircraft models.
The update does not affect the aircraft model names, so even though Boeing buys McDonnell Douglas, the aircraft model names remain as McDonnell Douglas MD-82 etc.
The
British aircraft manufacturer name changes are not yet modelled since
all what happened there in 1950s to 1970s is rather complicated. There
might be also some other omissions in the data, but please let us know
and we'll update.
