Flight planning outside EU to China

[PvtFrazer]

As an ex flight dispatcher, I enjoy this forum a lot (have been lurking for years). Back in the days, I only created flight plans/designed routes within the CFMU area and those few times that we had a one-off flight outside the EU, we contracted specialized companies to do the flight planning/obtain overflight permits for us. Yesterday I was reading an article on how difficult it is to plan a flight to China (this was only about business aviation). I was wondering, what does it take to set up a new scheduled line to China? Do you contact their civilair office? Will they impose certain routings? How does it work when you file a FPL outside the CFMU system; where do you get your ACK from? Just wondering.

[dc9-32]

Get yourself a decent flight planning system and people who understand the mechanics of how to do it, and away you go. Flight planning in China is not difficult if you know what you are doing.

[PvtFrazer]

Hello DC9-32. We had a decent flight planning system :-) My question was; how do you file flight plans outside the EU and how do you know they are acknowledged? (We used sita to transmit the FPL to CFMU; getting an immediate ACK or MAN/REJ). Another question is; how do you set up a scheduled line to a destination outside the EU? (for example the PRC) Just through local civilair? Or is there more involved?

[skabenga]

As far as I know Chinese ATC are not sending (ACK/REJ) messages for flight plans. You will simply need to file the flight plan to all the relevant AFTN addresses according to your FPL route as per normall. Be sure to use approved routes in China though. Get a good flight planner and local agent.

[dc9-32]

Like I said......

[bubbs]

Private or Non Commercial ops to China are relatively easy compared to Commercial ops. You will need a permit in all cases from the CAAC. Non Scheduled commercial ops above a certain number of flights per year require a special foreign operator approval I believe, very time consuming and complicated. I don’t know if it’s the same now, but in early to mid 2000s the approval was called CCAR129 or something like that. I never got involved with Scheduled flights, but I would imagine they’re more complicated again. Nowadays I stick to the non commercial stuff in my current job :)

Permits are just part of it, as nearly all the airports have slot/parking restrictions, and the permits are linked to the slots.

Flight planning wise wise there are specific routes that must be adhered to in China. These are published in the AIP, and also available in Jepp airway manuals' enroute text data. (A similar thing applies for routes in Australia, Middle East and Russia by the way) Number one rule - file the route that is on the permit, always - even if it’s different to what the 'book' says. The big airports are ALWAYS busy, so prepare to be flexible because the times that you want will probably not be the times that you get. Parking is limited too.

You our won’t get an 'ACK' from China when filing, but you will get a response if your route is wrong or permit invalid or things along those lines.... normally leaving you with 30s before departure to fix it (!!). Certain flight planning software will figure out all the relevant AFTN addresses for you too. Failing that, I’d google 'xxxxxx AIP' where xxxxx is the country, and have a look at the rules and regulations for filing etc.

Reccommend finding an agent in China to help with communication, particularly where the CAAC is involved - a good ground handler there could help point you in the right direction.

China can be a bit of a headache so if this is something that you would only do a few times a year, as already said in this thread, getting in touch with a Trip Planning or Flight Support company to sort your flight plans, permits, handling, fuel etc all out would probably make sense, as it can really sponge up your time. Sure, it comes with a cost but it would mean you could basically hand the vast majority of the running around over to said company while you sit back and relax ;)