Jetways are NOT controlled or handled by GSX, fact you can "operate" them from the GSX menu, doesn't mean that GSX is in any way involved in their movement, that is completely handled by the simulator, and nothing you do or change from GSX has any effect on how well (or how bad) the jetway will connect.
The only things that affects how well (or how bad) a jetway will connect are:
- How the jetway is modeled.
- How the jetway is placed in the airport
- The airplane doors configuration (not in GSX, GSX has nothing to do with this, in the aircraft own config files)
- The airplane position in relationship to the jetway.
All these things COMBINED will affect the jetway, which might connect, not connect at all, or connect partially. GSX simply ask the sim how the connection went, using a standard Simconnect call so, if the sim told GSX the jetway didn't connect well enough, GSX has no choice to trust it and report it to you.
The reason why GSX refuse to show passengers if the jetway is not well connected, is so you won't assume "GSX has a bug", because if it tried to show passengers on a jetway that is not well connected enough, depending how *bad* is connected, you might see "passengers in the air" and assume GSX has a problem, when in fact the only problem is the jetway not connected correctly, but clearly since passengers are obviously created by GSX, most users might not notice the real problem is the jetway, but they will immediately notice passengers in the air, so we prevent that, by simply not showing passengers unless the jetway is FULLY connected. Which if you think about it, is fairly similar to what will happen in real life: you don't want to risk boarding passengers on an half-way connected jetway.
And yes, of course there's a threshold, and it's fairly generous at 1.5 meters so, GSX will show that message only if the jetway docked with an error bigger than that, and this distance has been chosen by taking account what a person could cover at most with a single stride ("mind the gap")
Of course, this assumes you are using GSX correctly in the first place because, if you FORGET to do what you are always supposed to do when installing a new airport, which is entering the GSX Config page and run the Exclude 3rd party routine, which checks if there are new airports added since the last time you either installed or updated GSX, you might end up in a scenery CONFLICT caused by having the GSX replacement jetways active on a 3rd party or an handcrafted airports, which you shouldn't.
As explained in the GSX Manual, Page 7, those files are only meant to be used for bare default airports, and must be Disabled when using a 3rd party airport, regardless if it's freeware, payware, handcrafted supplied with the sim or with a World Update, etc. Anything that is not a bare default airport MUST have GSX replacement jetway files on the DISABLED side.
On the same page 7 of the manual, you'll find a suggestion that, if you mostly use 3rd party airports, it might be easier to just disable ALL Jetway replacement files at once and, eventually, Enable only those for the airports you have nothing better than default.
