By november of 2021 we finally have a nice AI traffic addon made by AIG who finally brought realism to the dark and empty airports of MSFS.
Asobo promised us a sim “as real as it gets”, but in many parts its far away from that goal.
Watch this:
At EDDF/FRA there are specific gates for Lufthansas big airliners like 747-8 and the A380 (when they were flown). See picture above. Especially since AIG brought the A380 we all know this big boy needs special gates at the hubs he services. He cant take any gate.
Actually you can find two designators in the aircraft.cfg files:
icao_type_designator = “A20N” // i.e. A320 neo
icao_airline = “DLH” // i.e. DLH for Lufthansa
It would be nice if you could restrict gates for Aircraft Types and/or Airlines…
gate_icao_type_restriction = “A388; B747” // i.e. Gate is only for A380-800 and Boieng 747
gate_icao_airline_restriction = “DLH; BA” // i.e. Gate is only for Lufthansa and British Aiwarys
and if you combine these two, then only the A380 and 747 from Lufthansa and BA can park there.
Actually its random where Planes park.
Whats already inside the SDK is the type of gate like “small”, “medium”, “heavy” and “ramp” or “cargo”.
But to have realsitic airport enviromenty we need a more specific designator on the gates to include or exclude specific airlines or types.
It looks just trashy when Ryanair B737 park aht the big Lufthansa Gates at EDDF.
Without ADE (a big mistake ), open your data/airport.xml and add "airlineCodes=“DLH” in the “TaxiwayParking” description you want to setup. You can add several ICAO airlines separeted by commas “DLH, EZY”…
Because you are using the SDK, and you may have done a new project, it’s in the PackageSource/data folder. If not, ADE is your friend and is able to do it.
You’ll have to use Airport Design Editor (available at Airport Design Editor for MSFS 2020 | FSDeveloper ), use it to create a project from the airport you want to work on. Since the SDK doesn’t currently support adding the parking spot modifier described above, you’ll need to edit the airport xml file in your project and edit each parking spot record by adding the above modifier, compile your airport when you are done and place it in the Community directory, and it might work…
Probably won’t though, I doubt they’ve added the code yet to handle the modifier to the AI Parking logic in MSFS. Maybe in a year or two. But I add the code to my airports when appropriate in hopes it does actually work someday. AI Parking is currently a mess though. It hasn’t been their top priority up until now. But, it is a focus for them that they’ve said they’ll be working on in upcoming versions next year.
Can confirm that gate assignment does work in ADE2020. Messed around with the default YSSY and have the domestic airlines in their correct terminals as well as A380 and cargo parking. The AI engine in the sim still has plenty of issues but they will hopefully be improved over time.
I’m trying to use ADE to modify the FlyTampa. Decompiling the .BGL is no problem and adding the codes to the parking positions is fine, but recompiling it produces a .BGL 1/6 the size of the original and when loaded into the sim there are no runways taxiways or objects……
It’s likely there’s an issue with ADE reading the third party airport. I’d head over to
and ask some questions there.
How did you purchase the airport. If through the store, it’s possible there’s DRM associated with it, and information isn’t available to ADE to decompile it. If not through the store, it’s still a possiblity. They can help you at the link above.
), open your data/airport.xml and add "airlineCodes=“DLH” in the “TaxiwayParking” description you want to setup. You can add several ICAO airlines separeted by commas “DLH, EZY”…