Originally Posted by
parishiltons
I do take your point. But surely the difference is semantic. In a busy en route surveillance sector more comms can happen by voice in a given timeframe than by CPDLC. Sure the latter has a place (noting that Eurocontrol authorises it only for non time critical communications), but we are a long way from it supplanting direct voice comms.
I disagree about being able to do more with voice comms in a given timeframe. I can be speaking to an aircraft to pass a frequency change and transfer 3 others in the same time via CPDLC. That said, I wouldn't undertake a busy radar session solely using CPDLC, but it's great for doing a few things whilst you're busy such as transferring aircraft or issuing the odd climb or direct routing that isn't safety critical. I agree that it'll certainly be a while before it supplants voice especially after the incident in the US where a message stayed stuck in the system for 24 hours and sent itself next time it found the flight number