I have both, both have pro and cons, and yes, traffic is the ultimate goal , but SI is more flexible Can do VFR Have cabin crew and tour guide Can almost always understand what you are saying Many co pilot voices Saw a clip yesterday from a short flight with traffic and premium voices for ATC, and basic voices for traffic. He used up more then twenty thousand characters , almost a dollar per flight, it is 10 dollars for 250000 characters. Imagine a long flight of a few hours. 1 flight a day and the cost is almost double then SI , that cost 16.25 $ per month for annual subscription' Just my opinion, but if you have to fly with one eye on the cost, it takes away a bit of the fun.
I also have both. From a realism aspect SI is the ticket. It has active sky integration and also has real life ATIS information. What made me try SI is the BATC has its own ATIS based on weather conditions. It was a PITA trying to land on a real world inop runway with fsltl on . Just recently simbrief added prefile abilities. Last but not least SI has CPDLC in the Fenix. I could go on and on but SI in my opinion is far superior and a must have for those striving for max realism
BATC is cool, but falls apart for VFR flying. I have both but I use SI far more than BATC, because it does far better at contextual stuff where BATC seems to be like an AI version of Pilot2ATC. Heavily scripted and not very flexible. I've literally sat in the cockpit, cold and dark, with the Mentor guide on and had discussions about weight and balance/CG, performance for the given flights, checklists. While in cruise I've had actual discussion with AI on what different GA planes do what and for what scenarios. Plus in integrates with OnAir (albeit a bit limited still) for dispatch info. Can literally be in cruise and talk to VA dispatch about what fuel is available at your destination and the nearest alt airport that has it if destination doesn't have enough. That kind of immersion just doesn't exist in BATC. The traffic again is neat, but still superficial. I think after MSFS2024 releases we'll see SI push harder into this arena. I'll add to that SI allows live multiplayer radio chatter, plus prerecorded historical chatter and pregenerated chatter. But to know someone is live on a channel gives VATSIM vibes (when no controllers...which is often) and adds another level of immersion.
Realistically for Airline operations the PNF would be handling ATC communications so recognition should not be an issue. Now that BATC added traffic injection it currently has the upper hand over SI! It will be what they'll do to counter and how fast they can respond.
