12-05-2017, 05:01 AM
(12-05-2017, 02:56 AM)Unknown98 Wrote: I'm not sure how I'd do that in the back-end. It may be possible if I get creative with it. But how would you determine when it's acceptable for the plane to de-gate or when it should stay at the gate?
Additionally, and maybe somebody with more knowledge than me can comment on this, how is it done in real life? Will aircraft de-gate and transition to a parking spot if they're staying overnight or for an extended period of time, or will it remain at the gate? There's only so much parking available I would assume.
This is actually a pretty common practice at overnight outstations. Usually they just find tarmac space relatively close to the terminal (it's an actual painted parking spot, but this is essentially the only use) to keep aircraft overnight for airports that have a lot of late night/early morning flights but either the airline or the airport doesn't have the gate space to accommodate all aircraft at a gate overnight.
You could potentially set it up so that if there's 2 hours (as an example) or more between the "ready at" time and an hour prior to the next scheduled departure (to simulate gate space needed for boarding) the aircraft is moved to an arbitrary parking spot. Only question is what/how would you assess a parking charge for this?