Disclosed is a method and system for aligning a door of an aircraft to a passenger loading bridge. A final parking position of the aircraft is defined as being immediately adjacent to a position of the passenger loading bridge, such that when the aircraft is stopped at the final parking position, the passenger loading bridge requires only a telescopic extension of less than about 1 meter to complete the alignment operation. To this end, an indicating device that works cooperatively with an aircraft-engaging end of the passenger loading bridge is provided for displaying human intelligible instructions for use by a pilot of the aircraft to guide the aircraft to the final parking position.