Sounds like a carrier aviation-vs-big guns debate from the interwar period (1918-1939), but 21st-century version.
However, there are much more things to consider than just going "missile gets further, no need plane ATW", or "plane gets further, no need missile go far ATW".
To set the premise of discussion, let's talk about anti-ship strike missions.
On one hand, shipborne AShMs (i.e. launched from a surface combatant) are typically larger than airborne AShMs (i.e. launched from a carrier-based fighter) due to the obvious fact - Whereby shipborne AShMs can be as large as the VLS onboard surface warships permits them, while airborne AShMs have to fit the size of the carrier-based fighters without scraping the flight deck of aircraft carriers. This also resulted in the volumes allocated for AShMs to be fitted on carrier-based fighters being always smaller than the volumes allocated for AShMs fitted inside VLS cells. This directly translates to having a smaller volume for fuel, hence lower effective strike range for the airborne AShMs compared to their shipborne counterparts.
In fact, this problem is actually even more pronounced for 5th-gen fighters when going on anti-ship missions that require stealth-mode (instead of beast-mode). While 5th-gen fighters have internal weapons bays that the AShMs must be designed in order to fit inside of it in order to preserve the fighters' stealth profile (or be designed such that they can be carried underneath the fighters' wings without compromising on the fighters' stealth profile too much), 4th-gen carrier-based fighters have no internal weapons bays to consider. So until 6th-gen fighters with larger internal weapons bay that allows even bigger payloads to be carried inside the fuselage, I believe we are going to be stuck with 4th-gen + 5th-gen combination of carrier-based fighters for quite a while.
Furthermore, with the growing interests in the swapping of present-day UVLS with a much larger-diameter LVLS onboard surface combatants, shipborne AShMs will be given even more leeway to grow even larger than they already are, thus pushing their effective strike ranges even further out.
In the meantime, for the airborne AShMs - They can only stand aside to let the bombers from the air force to takd over the stage.
However, until now, we are strictly talking about AShMs.
On the other hand, while airborne AShMs have lower ranges than shipborne AShMs, airborne AShMs have a natural boost - Carrier-based fighters that are carrying them. As the effective strike ranges of shipborne AShMs are practically stuck with the very same range built into the AShMs themselves, i.e. the launchers (i.e.surface combatants) must get within the range of which their shipborne AShMs can reliably hit their targets in order to conduct strike missions - Airborne AShMs are launched when the carrier-based fighters are flying closer to their targets, which is always much further away from the allied aircraft carriers and surface combatants. This means that airborne AShMs can extend their effective strike ranges much further out than shipborne AShMs, that is in the 100s of kilometers - sometimes even more than 1000 kilometers.
This, with the addition of mid-air refueling from manned large tankers and refueling drones during strike missions, will extend the effective strike ranges of airborne AShMs to even greater extends.
Then, there're the speed & altitude edges that are exclusive to airborne AShMs, which is completely absent from shipborne AShMs. Being launched at higher speeds means more initial momentum, while being launched at higher altitudes means more room for the AShMs to maneuver around. Both these features usually bring longer effective strike ranges for the airborne AShMs compared to their shipborne counterparts.
Therefore, we can already see that from the discussion on the matter of anti-ship strike missions alone - Both shipborne AShMs and airborne AShMs have their respective pros and cons, which aren't as clear cut as some might've imagine.
The best way to deal with the question on which one is better - Is to invest and develop on both types of anti-ship strike methods and profiles, then pick the right one accordibg to the right situations.
Of course, this is also applicable for non-anti-ship strike missions, such as land-attack (i.e. LAtMs).
Then, there's the equally-important matter of ship defense and fleet defense.
For individual warships that are frigate-sized or larger, they are always equipped with ASW helicopters, hull-mounted sonar, torpedoes and depth charges/anti-sub rockets for ASW, plus all sorts of LRSAMs, MRSAMs, SRSAMs and CIWS for anti-air defense. In addition, the growing attention on LVLS should also provide some boosts for fleet defense, in terms of being able to multipack more SAM missiles within one LVLS cell in the same volume compared to UVLS. This, coupled with the advancement of naval propulsion systems, which in turn enables lasers to become increasingly viable for use as CIWS onboard warships - Further enhances the comprehensive defensive capabilities for individual warships and the allied warship fleets.
In the meantime, aircraft carriers in particular always carry not just more ASW helicopters, but also:
#1 - AEW helicopters for early-warning of enemy attacks and target-guidance against enemy targets (for some carriers);
#2 - Carrier-based fighters that can intercept and engage enemy warplanes and/or enemy AShMs, with sufficient distances from allied warships/fleets;
#3 - Carrier-based AEW&C aircrafts for directing efforts in anti-ship, land-attack and fleet defense operations/missions (for some carriers); and
#4 - Carrier-based UCAVs for special missions in support of AEW(&C), ASW, ELINT, SIGINT, EW, ECM, and other types of fleet defense efforts of manned units.
Needless to say, all of #1 through #4 are pretty vital for the all-encompassing networked defense management across an entire fleet of warships. Furthermore, all of these will only be feasible with the presence of aircraft carriers.
Last-but-not-least, with the already-expected proliferation of hypersonic AShMs across the world's oceans in the coming years that are increasingly getting ever more challenging to intercept, such as the DF-17, DF-27, YJ-21, Khinzal, Zircon, LRHW, CHGB and HAWC - In order to effectively engage these types of AShMs, perhaps navies around the world could be rendered being dependent on high-supersonic or hypersonic interceptor aircrafts and/or drones to chase after those enemy hypersonic AShMs and launching their own hypersonic-capable AAMs and/or airframe/mounted laser pods in order to shoot them down. This, once again, require aircraft carriers to accomplish the task.
To put it simply - We need to see surface combatants and carrier-based naval aviation as a mutualistic relationship, for both the needs of offense and defense of the Chinese warships and the PLAN. That means neither side could exclude the other.
Hence, in a nutshell - Once again on the question on "Missiles ATW, or planes ATW?", I believe that the correct answer should be:
BOTH, ATW.
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