Universal Announcer

Universal Announcer Logo

Plays Fenix A320 compatible Cabin Announcements on any aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Universal Announcer automatically detects your flight state and plays realistic cabin announcements based on your aircraft’s conditions - boarding music, safety briefings, takeoff announcements, and more. Originally designed around the Fenix A320 sound files, it works with any aircraft in MSFS.

You do not need the Fenix A320 for this to work (although you should have it, it’s great).

✈️ Features

This app follows the announcements detailed here:

https://support.fenixsim.com/hc/en-us/articles/12374580682383-Cabin-Announcements-Guide

🎵 Sound Files

⚠️ IMPORTANT: No sound files are included with this application. This application does not include any copyright sound files.

You can obtain compatible sound files from:

  1. Default Sound Pack: Use the in‑app installer to download and install a public‑domain starter pack automatically (includes boarding music you can replace later)
  2. Fenix A320 Installation: If you own the Fenix A320, the sound files are already installed
  3. Cabin Announcements Discord: join the Cabin Announcements for Fenix Discord server for community-created sound files (If you get invalid link try with another browser, Chrome sometimes fails with it)
  4. Make You Own: Get your tray tables in an upright position and get recording, it’s just plain sound files (see here for specs)
  5. Use a Text to Speech service within the app and generate your own on the fly or pregenerated! Allows for in-flight context to be used in what it says. More details here.
    • Supports Windows (local offline), Azure, Edge, and ElevenLabs voice providers.

If you don’t own the Fenix then it is worth considering taking one of the Cabin Announcement packs from Discord and dropping them in a folder Announcements\Default, so they can be used with or without any airline code as a fallback.

📋 System Requirements

Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11 Flight Simulator: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS 2024 should work but untested, let me know) Runtime: .NET 8 (included with Windows by default) Sound Files: Compatible announcement files (see above)

📦 Installation

  1. Extract: Unzip the downloaded file to its own folder (e.g., D:\MSFS\Universal Announcer\).
  2. Toolbar: If this is a new install, place the universalannouncer-toolbar folder in your MSFS Community folder. For updates, this folder can usually stay the same version unless otherwise noted.
  3. Run: Double-click UniversalAnnouncer.exe to start the application.

The application will appear in your system tray and automatically try to locate your sound files.

You can find the current releases HERE

Note: under ‘Assets’ you see the file to download and unzip e.g. ‘UniversalAnnouncer-v0-3-3.zip’ etc.

🔧 Setup

First Launch

Run the application - It will appear in your system tray Configure sound files path - The app will try to auto-detect your Fenix installation location, or you can browse to your sound files folder. If you don’t have that, just create an Announcements folder somewhere, put a Default folder in it, and in that put a .ogg sound file. Set up you simbrief username in the Settings / Integrations tab and fetch a plan.

If you’re starting from scratch, open the Sound Files tab and click “Run setup…” to install the Default Sound Pack automatically (or choose to use your Fenix A320 files instead).

You can also enable “Start with MSFS” in the Status tab to have the sim launch the app automatically.

If not sure how to set up the folders, take a look HERE

🌐 Localization

Help translate the app to a new language or update existing translations. Start here:

Current Languages:

🔧 Configuration

Set up your Simbrief username in the Settings / Integrations tab to fetch your last plan automatically.

The following step is an alternative to using the Navigraph simbrief plan support:

For airline-specific announcements, set your Tail number in MSFS:

In MSFS 2020 (similar names in MSFS 2024), go to World Map → Aircraft Selection → Customization (tab) Set Tail number to your airline code (e.g., UAL, ACA, BAW, DAL just the letters alone are used, so ok to put UAL123) The app will automatically detect your aircraft type (737, CRJ900, A320, etc.) Remember to do it when setting a Livery!

Generated Announcements (optional)

Sound File Structure Your sound files should be organized like this:

Announcements/
├── Default/          # Fallback announcements
├── UAL/              # United Airlines
├── ACA/              # Air Canada
├── BAW/              # British Airways
└── DAL/              # Delta Airlines

 Each folder contains files like:

SafetyBriefing[1].ogg (you can have multiple sets and it’ll pick at random) AfterTakeoff.ogg[A359][2].ogg (tags can be combined) And many more as per Fenix structure in the link above…

🎮 Usage

⚠️ IMPORTANT: If you are NOT using GSX, DISABLE IT and to start the sequence use the Logo Light to on to indicate passengers are now boarding.

If you’re curious on what does what when, check out these rules, although these will get updated based on user feedback over time:

State Machine Rules & Triggers

(updated above link for new simbrief and GSX integration info)

System Tray Menu:

Right-click the system tray icon to access:

Flight State: Override automatic detection or restart the sequence Stop/Resume: Pause/resume all announcements Audio Device: Select your preferred audio output Volume: Adjust announcement volume Settings: Configure sound paths and announcement types About: Version information and pretty picture

🔧 Configuration

Announcement Types

Enable/disable specific announcements:

Boarding Welcome & Music Safety Briefing Takeoff Announcements Cruise Announcements (elapsed‑time based) Landing Announcements And more…

Audio Settings

Device Selection: Choose your preferred audio output Volume Control: Adjust from 10% to 100% Fallback Options: Use Default folder if airline-specific files are missing PA Audio Mix: Simulate a PA system sound on generated audio

🐛 Troubleshooting

FAQ and Common Issues:

I can’t find the app and it says it is running!: Check your windows System Tray, it is hiding in there.

Nothing is happening: If not using GSX then turn that feature off (Settings/Integrations) and use the LOGO LIGHT to ON to indicate the passengers are boarding.

No sound playing: Check your sound files path in Settings or use Sounds ‘Preview’ to check them.

Wrong airline: Check your last simbrief generated plan or set your MSFS Callsign in the sim to the correct airline code, e.g. ‘UAL123’ for United (matches folder names). If none of that works, just override them on the Status tab.

No Seat Belt triggered sounds playing: Still working on it, some default aircraft work.

Audio device issues: Select your correct audio device in Settings

Boarding but no musac!: Again :) use the Logo On light to trigger the boarding manually.

It is a Virus!!: Sorry about that but False Positives come up enough for me to put some words here on this: here

Need to report a bug?: If you’re experiencing an issue, enable debug mode to help diagnose the problem. See How to Enable Debug Mode and Submit an Issue for detailed instructions.

Settings & Log Files

Settings and logs are saved to: %APPDATA%\UniversalAnnouncer. 

🤝 Support & Feedback

This is an initial release that I use myself. While there’s no formal support, I’m interested in feedback and bug reports. If you need to report an issue, please enable debug mode first - see How to Enable Debug Mode and Submit an Issue for instructions.

Thank you to those that bought me a coffee and to keep all this free - I’m now highly caffeinated!

"Buy Me A Coffee"

Happy Flying! ✈️

📜 Compatibility

Next Feature Ideas

Put a .plan file here, so feel free to comment on in issues:

Future Plans

⚖️ License & Disclaimer

This free software is provided “as is” without warranty. No copyrighted sound files included - users must obtain compatible files separately. For educational/entertainment purposes only. Users are responsible for compliance and assume all risks.

This software uses “SimConnect” © Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.

This app is in no way associated, approved or condoned by FenixSim Ltd, Navigraph or FSDreamTeam.