If I may ask, not having any experience with AFPEx and only limited experience with EuroFPL, what does the former do that the latter doesn't that you
For GA ops, nothing. EuroFPL now does the lot.
Well, with AFPEx you get your own AFTN address, and you can send or receive "free text" messages. I had hopes this would be good for stuff like PPR/PNR but after a year or so of fairly extensive testing I have decided that - except for the very rare suprise - it is useless for that purpose, presumably due to job demarcation at airports where the man who gets the AFTN message refuses to pass it to the operations dept (for PPR) or to Customs (for Customs PNR) etc because this is 1970 British Leyland and it is not his job. The only situation where I found free text messages to work reliably was when sending to a small (basically one-office) operation like my home airfield where I know the message will be read immediately. But for bigger places it's a waste of time.
The idea of being able to amend flight plans over SMS is brilliant
It is, and I was testing
EuroFPL's facility yesterday. It really does work. Absolutely brill. You can select SMS and/or email notifications.
The only thing which caught me was that the SMS manipulation works only within the last 24hrs of the EOBT, so if you file say 4 days ahead, you can't change it using SMS. But then you are very unlikely to need to do that via SMS.
EuroFPL will be charging $10/month or $100/year. It's a good package, where the average UK PPL will spend maybe $30 a year, flying abroad in the summer.
EuroFPL is free for flight plan filing (and you get email notification of FPL messages in that, which can be picked up with any half decent phone these days) but you need the paid subscription to get the SMS feature (obviously; SMS transmission has to be funded somehow).
I couldn't agree more about your comments on fax. It is far more reliable than email, whose usefulness has been trashed by spam, spam filters, and the inability of people and firms to maintain valid addresses over time.
Anyway, here is the EuroFPL SMS functionality:
Filing Messages via SMS
SMS features can be used with any EuroFPL Premier account. Each pilot
can set their individual contact preferences in the Pilot Registry
portion of the site. If PREFERRED CONTACT is set to SMS, then all
ACK/MAN/REJ, SLOT, and miscellaneous messages will be sent in an
abbreviated form to the SMS NUMBER mobile number provided. If
PREFERRED CONTACT is set to CUSTOM, a panel will appear that will
allow you to set SMS or EMAIL contact each message type. Mobile
numbers should be entered as the country code and phone number without
leading zeroes.
It should also be noted that in order for the system to detect
individual pilots and their settings for messages received, the
PILOT-IN-COMMAND line of the flight plan as filed must be unmodified
from the data populated in that field by the Load Pilot menu.[my emphasis - this one caught me out]
Flight Notifications via SMS
SMS features can be used with any EuroFPL Premier account. With a
flight plan filed, users can set up automatic flight notifications in
the Notifications section of the site. These users can input either an
email address or mobile number of personnel they want contacted at
departure (DEP), approach (APP) about 20 minutes from destination, and
upon arrival (ARR). Mobile numbers should be entered as the country
code and phone number without leading zeroes.
ARR, DLA, and CNL via SMS
Upon receiving an SMS-based ACK/MAN/REJ from EuroFPL, users can note
the number/short code the message arrives from and reply back to it
with "HELP" to access remote ARR, DLA, and CNL filing features. This
interface allows these functions for any same-day flight plan(s)
active in the account that the user's mobile number is attached to via
a Pilot Registry profile.
Example arrival...
ARCID ADEP1200 ARR ADES1315
ARCID - tail number/flight callsign
ADEP - departure aero
1200 - departure time
ARR - arrival command
ADES - arrival aero (if different from dest)
1315 - arrival time (current time set if omitted)
Example cancel...
ARCID ADEP1200 CNL
ARCID - tail number/flight callsign
ADEP - departure aero
1200 - departure time
CNL - cancel command
Example delay...
ARCID ADEP1200 DLA 1315
ARCID - tail number/flight callsign
ADEP - departure aero
1200 - departure time
DLA - delay command
1315 - delay to time