Handling
The Maxim Airliner offered the stiffest handling and fared the poorest in terms of overall handling in this group of ropes tested. Straight out of the package the Airliner felt stiffer than other ropes and with time it got stiffer rather than softening up. Hence, it was harder to tie knots in and more difficult when feeding through a belay device. The Airliner was prone to kinking and becoming twisted, causing some frustration on longer routes as those twists would build up in the rope and could only be removed by untying.

Resistance to Dirt
The Airliner did a good job staying clean and proved reasonably resistant to dirt and scored just under the top scoring rope in this group. The Endura Dry 2x dry treatment did a good job keeping the rope clean and even after the rope was put through repeated use and abuse in rock and ice climbing, when many dry treated ropes suffer in the dirt department, the Airliner did well. The bright yellow and red color of the rope was diminished some, as is to be expected, but it looks better than many of the ropes we tested.

Durability
The Airliner shared the honor of most durable rope tested in this group with the Metolius Monster. For a skinny rope, the Airliner proved to be surprisingly durable despite tough field testing that involved dozens of days on rock and ice. After field testing, the rope’s sheath showed sign of wear in the form of fuzz on the sheath, but during in house testing the rope fared better than the Sterling Fusion Nano and BlueWater Icon. During the abrasion test, the sheath showed some fuzz on the sheath but it was less than the Sterling and BlueWater and during the sharp edge test, the core just started to show, faring similar to the Metolius Monster.

Features
All Airliner ropes feature Maxim’s Endrua Dry 2X treatment of the core and sheath. The Airliner performed admirably on ice climbing days, doing a decent job keeping moisture out of the rope and preventing it from freezing or icing up, although it didn’t seem to perform as well as some of the other dry treated ropes. The Airliner is certified as a single and half rope, offering climbers the ability to use it in a double rope situation. One feature missing on the Airliner is a middle mark. Although available in a bi-pattern, single color ropes lack any type of middle mark, making it more difficult to find the halfway point as many testers desired.

Versatility
Testers felt most at home using the Airliner on ice climbing days and rock climbing with sharp, abrasive rock due to its great durability. For ice climbing, the effective Endura Dry treatment worked well but the stiff handling and kinking made it less appealing for testers in alpine environments or multi-pitch rock climbing where those kinks and twists made handling difficult. That stiff handling caused it to lose appeal for many sport climbers although climbers looking for a skinny rope that can handle abuse may appreciate the Airliner. Additionally, a lack of a middle mark caused the rope to lose some value for multi-pitch climbers due to the difficulty in finding the halfway point of the rope on rappels.