Treatment of IFR flight plans (UK, outside Class A)

[DFC]

Re: Treatment of IFR flight plans (UK, outside Class A)

Vintage ATCO,

Ring up the route charges office AT LTCC or LACC wherever it is now and ask them. You could also ask someone who has been doing the FIR for some years about the SI sent out reminding all FIR ATSAs to ensure that the flight rules were recorded correctly whenever it was provided by a flight (no requirement to tell the FIR what rules your are operating under). There was an operator some years back that queried bills for VFR flights and successfully argued that the FIR controller (as it was at the time) incorrectly recorded the flight rules on the strip.

As far as I am aware all the strips are collected and sent to the Route Charges office at the end of each day.

I never said that LARS units processed route charges for services provided. I said that it was ironic that they did not.

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Flight plan addressing:

IFR flight plans are only addressed to IFPS. If anyone can find a reference that says otherwise then please shout.

Now for addressing of VFR flights or IFR flights in the pre-IFPS days;

Flight from A to B to C and back to A. Thus 3 flights and 3 flight plans.

A-B is transmitted by A to everyone who should get it (dep, dest, enroute FIR etc).

B-C is transmitted to B who is responsible for addressing the plan as required.

C-A is transmitted to C who is responsible for addressing the plan as required.

Looking at the C to A flight, C will address the plan to dep, dest and enroute. Thus A will get another copy from C because it is the destination.

If the C to A flight diverts into B, it must on arrival tell B that it had a flight plan filed and that the original destination was A so that B can send an arrival message to B so that overdue action will not be started.

For certain airfields within an FIR, a central office can handle the reception, addressing and distribution of flight plans. eg Heathrow for it's designated area.

What Austro control are doing with IFR flights is totally correct even if the flight is within the UK and outside controlled airspace. Just because the flight is outside controlled airspace does not mean that a flight plan can be filed ignoring the national regulations or flow or other restrictions that may be in place.

Also Austro control are treating the VFR FPLs IO540 sends them correctly i.e. when the dep is not in their area of responsibility, they follow ICAO rules and send one copy of the flight plan to the ARO at the DEP airfield. In effect, the service they provide is that you can file your VFR FPL from Bristol to Cardiff over the internet and they give the FPL to Bristol just like you could yourself (if you were there).

As vintage ATCO says, the people to talk to about flight plan addressing are those that work at Heathrow. For many flights, they have what are called collective addresses (some are published in the reference I gave from the UK AIP). These ensure that say a VFR flight plan from UK to Italy goes to all the required addresses enroute by simply putting in 1 address.

Those people at Heathrow can tell you where to address a flight plan for a flight from Heathrow to Singapore. Ask them about the address for the return flight and they will simply say - we sent it to Singapore and it is up to them to address it.

That is it when it comes to flight plans.

For a better idea of how professionals integrate aircraft operations, IFPS, CFMU, Flight PLans etc, as for a visit to BA operations!

Regards,

DFC