Ground operations are one of the least polished parts of virtual flying. You can plan a flight in detail, fly a carefully managed approach and land on the right runway, then reach the apron with no clear idea of where to park. Microsoft Flight Simulator’s default parking logic often ignores real-world airline allocations, and third-party tools tend to handle only one part of the problem. 🔆 GateFinder, a freeware utility by Flightsim.to creator SidestickPriority, tries to cover the whole ground phase in one application. It works with both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024.
The project has grown quickly. Version 1.1 appeared on Flightsim.to in late June 2026, and more than a dozen updates followed over the summer and autumn. The latest, version 2.0.5, came out this week, only days after the major 2.0.4 release. That pace of development, together with a 4.9 rating from early reviewers and around 3,000 downloads, has made GateFinder one of the more closely watched utilities in the Applications category.
Smarter stand assignment
Stand assignment is the core of GateFinder. You can import your flight plan from SimBrief, or skip SimBrief and let the tool read your position directly from a live MSFS session. Either way, GateFinder picks a stand based on airline-specific rules, your aircraft’s wingspan, and parking data from GSX Pro or OpenStreetMap. Allocation covers more than commercial airline flights, with separate logic for cargo, military, business jet and general aviation operations. That means a Citation pilot shouldn’t be sent to a widebody gate, and a freighter crew should end up on the cargo apron rather than at the terminal.
GateFinder also checks the stands themselves. The tool compares assignments against VATSIM, IVAO and AI traffic so it doesn’t send you to a stand that is already occupied. If an AI aircraft is sitting on your assigned stand, GateFinder can remove it automatically, and this also works on MARS sub-stands. If you use GSX Pro, the assigned stand syncs straight into GSX. If GSX isn’t running, the tool can move your aircraft to the stand itself through SimConnect.
A Lido-style moving map
The second major component is a vector moving map inspired by Lido airport charts. It shows runways, taxiways and stands in detail and comes with day and night themes. You can choose between route, gate and follow views, and set the refresh rate to 5, 10 or 20 Hz depending on how much performance you can spare. In version 2.0.5 the author added verified, pre-cached charts for 50 major airports, so the most common hubs should load faster and more reliably.
Taxi support with BeyondATC and SayIntentions.AI
GateFinder’s AI ATC integration is likely to matter most to anyone already flying with AI-driven controllers. The tool reads taxi clearances, gate assignments and runway assignments from BeyondATC and SayIntentions.AI, so the route you’re given appears on the map. You can also build or edit a taxi route yourself by clicking taxiway labels on the chart, which helps at large, complicated airports where a spoken clearance is easy to lose track of. Several commenters on the add-on page single out this taxi assistance as the feature they value most.
Flexible ways to use it
The developer has made GateFinder available in several forms. It runs as a standalone desktop application, as a native EFB app in MSFS 2024, as an EFB app inside the Fenix A319, A320 and A321, and as an in-game toolbar panel that works in both 2D and VR. A web-based EFB is also available on a tablet or phone after you scan a QR code. The desktop interface supports 4K and high-DPI displays, remembers your window layout and can apply airline-colored themes.
What’s new in 2.0.5
The newest release mainly improves stability and convenience. A built-in one-click auto-updater should make future updates simpler, which helps given how often new versions have appeared. A new prompt warns you when your SimBrief plan doesn’t match what is loaded in the sim. The update also targets the moving-map freezes and lag some users reported with the 2.0.4 builds, fixes passenger airliners that were wrongly classed as cargo aircraft, and fixes an issue that stopped MSFS from shutting down cleanly.
Installation
Setup is mostly guided. After you extract the package and launch GateFinder.exe, enter your SimBrief username or pilot ID in the settings and test the connection. Auto-detect then finds your GSX profile path and MSFS Community folder. The Install Panel button deploys the in-game panel and the MSFS 2024 EFB app. You can also enable the Fenix EFB integration and set GateFinder to start and close along with the simulator.
GateFinder handles an often-overlooked part of the flight and combines stand allocation, airport charts, traffic awareness and ATC taxi routing in one place. Ground handling still has some rough edges in MSFS, so a free tool like this is worth a look, especially if you already use SimBrief, GSX Pro or an AI ATC service. GateFinder is 🔆 free to download on Flightsim.to. If it improves your time on the ground, consider supporting SidestickPriority through the Buy Me a Coffee or PayPal links on the creator’s profile.