Originally Posted by
Ian W
RVSM and flight at Opposite Direction Levels are used to send blocks of traffic ("sausage" tm NATS) across the Atlantic all on Mach no. restrictions, and can put you into the turbulent wake of an aircraft ahead and above - and keep you there for the entire flight. We have also all seen what can happen with a stable vortex from the A380 drifting waiting for someone to fly into it.
The good news for the Atlantic at least is that around 2025 the NAT OTS is being retired and instead it will be 'business trajectories' for all. That may cause some extra work for your dispatchers and your flight planning systems will need to be able to provide an optimized flight plan track, level and speed rather than defaulting to Track C. But if you are not flying in trail in an OTS track then I would expect the continuous chop from the wake of the aircraft ahead to become a thing of the past.
Being SLOPpy in your navigation can fix that now.