Originally Posted by evilroy
Ah! Many thanks for clearing that up.
On a related note, when you lodge a flight plan in the US, can all ATC stations access it or does it only go to the units concerned? In my day, we'd figure out what airspace the plan concerned was going to involve, give it the relevent routing indicators (addresses) and throw it on the AFTN. If a flight had a major diversion from its planned track or alternates, someone would have to re-route / retransmit the plan to the affected stations.
I'd imagine that with the systems of today, any station can call up a plan?
No, only those concerned can look at the flight plan. If there's a major reroute, the concerned controller just enters it in his flight data system (called URET in CONUS) and it's sent along to those that need it by the automated system. At the same time it's taken down from the sectors that no longer need it.