I got tired of guessing where to park, so I made automatic dispatcher to tell me over Hoppie
Do you actually ever know where you're supposed to park?
I fly the leg properly. OFP, CPDLC, the whole ritual. And then I get into the terminal area and just... pick a stand. Something that looks free and roughly the right size. It's the one point in the flight where the illusion falls apart for me every single time.
So I filled that gap. Before arrival you now get a dispatcher telex over Hoppie with your assigned stand, printed out on the ACARS printer like any other company message.
On arrival to VVNB - Toliss A21N
It does the same for departure, so you know which stand you're pushing back from before you even load into simulator, not just where you end up.
The messaging part was the easy bit. The hard part is the data, because real stand allocation isn't random - it depends on the operator, the aircraft size, terminal layout, domestic vs international. So the backend keeps per-airport stand data and picks something plausible for your callsign and type, rather than throwing a random number at you.
One thing that turned out more interesting than I expected: group flights. If several of you fly the same route together, the dispatcher assigns stands for the whole group instead of everyone guessing separately. You pick how you want it - all parked side by side, or spread out the way a real operation would do it, but still kept as close together as it realistically can.
The catch is that there are thousands of airports (I am sourcing this data externally) and I've personally been to a rounding error of them. So it works the same way the X-Plane Scenery Gateway does: if you know your home field like the back of your hand, you can fill in its stand data and everyone else benefits. That's honestly the part I'd most like help with.
Works worldwide and for any airline, and on X-Plane, MSFS 2020/2024 and P3D.
Disclosure: this is part of AnyAirline (anyairline.app), which I develop. If you want to try it, the setup is short - make an account, pick the network you fly on (there's a "none" option if you fly offline or on SayIntentions), have your Hoppie logon set up in the aircraft, and file a proper flight in the FMC. As long as the dispatcher knows where you're going, the telex turns up on its own.
Happy to answer anything about how the allocation works, or about the airport data if you want to fill in a field you know well. 😄