Flight Plans

[GBALU53]

Can any one answer this one.

Why can airlines or operators in Europe get away with filing two flight plans for the same flight to find the best slots, if there are slots, by puting an extra letter on the end of the flightplan.

I.E. ABC123 from xxxx to zzzz routing so and so

ABC123A from xxxx to zzzz with a differant routing.

This is not good practice as the computer at CFMU does not know that they this is the same aircraft operating this flight but the airlines or operators can get away with it.

This only creats problems for every one else and at the end of the day the one who tried to beat the system failed because they had the worst slot??

[PPRuNe Radar]

The CFMU are usually keen to hear of such instances and follow it up with the rogue companies.

Have seen one European operator recently do it a lot (albeit the second plan is usually cancelled about an hour before the flight). The plans originate in KLAX !! Possibly just their flight plan software provider or a contracted Ops agency who don't know any better ?? Just a sign of our industry Spanning the Globe

[cossack]

That practice has been going on for years and the operators are seldom very subtle, unlike our Mr Radar.

[chiglet]

Thanx Cossack....
I've been an ATCA/ATSA since 1969. When "Flow" was [first] introduced in the 1970s, most Airlines have "tried" to circumvent/exploit the "System". I could "name NAMES", as could Cossack....but
A few years ago, the ATC units and the earlier form of Eurocontrol tried to outlaw this practice. You can judge for yourself just how successful "ATC" has been.
As an aside, the poor old so and so who has to input multiple flight plan route changes into the ATC Flight Plan Computor/HCS [one UK Charter Airline filed eleven changes in seven minutes last year.....about 30 mins before departure. Normally an a/c has to file at least 40 mins prior to departure.
It has been known for an a/c to be cleared for a XXX SID and DEPART on said SID while his "Latest" FPL is being processed. [The Flight deck crew are not necessarily kept up to speed by their "Ops" department
watp,iktch

[flowman]

There are many ways to "cheat" the system, all of which are known to the aircraft operators. Most of them are simply ways of queue jumping. Some operators do it regularly, others do not. The ones that do are known to us, if they end up in the poo because of their dodgy practices (as often happens) they will receive no assistance from us.
Life is like that. There are those who follow the rules and those who do not. The nice thing here is that every input into CFMU systems is logged and they are easy to identify but with up to 30,000 flights per day we have better things to do than go looking for them.

[TATC]

I have noticed this happening where I am and I have been told that if the flight plans are for the same aircraft - i.e the registration is inluded, then it is illegal, you are not allowed two active flight plans for the same aircraft at the same time for the same route. I might have been misinforme though

[White Hart]

Quote "It has been known for an a/c to be cleared for a XXX SID and DEPART on said SID while his "Latest" FPL is being processed. [The Flight deck crew are not necessarily kept up to speed by their "Ops" department"

As Chiglet has highlighted, this issue has been a bone of contention for a long time. The use of multiple filing by operators initially causes the problem, but the procedure of re-inputting these into NAS exacerbates the problem. The issue of how these late/multiple refiles are dealt with needs looking at, both from an IFPS/ CFMU position, and from FPRSA at our end.

With regard to "our end", we had two such instances of multiple filing at LL last week within one hour of each other (during the French ATC strike). Both NAS inputs showing a refiled route came out of the printer after each a/c had received a clearance and taxied for departure. One departed with the wrong FPL info, and the other was caught just before takeoff, and the new details passed to the pilot.

IFPS/CFMU needs to change (enforce?) the rules if it wants to put a stop to multiple filing. Any changes to routing should be done using a FPL CANCEL message, followed by a refile. CHG messages should not be allowed for anything to do with routing.

Changes to routing is the only scenario where we have real problems with the FPRSA system - other changes (type/level etc) can usually be picked up at the clearance delivery stage. The fact that FPRSA receive/process these late route refiles as CHG messages is not helpful. (do CHG messages go to the top of the work priority queue at FPRSA? - based on what is happening here, I very much doubt it)

The procedure shoud be changed. FPRSA should telephone the relevant VCR and advise of a late reroute, or of a Company attempting multiple refiles. It would give the VCR valuable minutes/seconds to advise and hold the affected a/c whilst we wait for the CID/1 strip to appear - and this would reduce the number of instances of a/c flying wrong SIDs due to late refiles. If they don't want to call us, then ALL route changes should be processed by removing the redundant FPL from NAS, followed by a new FPL input.

Two such calls last week would have stopped the two incidents mentioned above.

[PPRuNe Radar]

In the case of operators filing multiple flight plans for the same aircraft registration, the following could possibly be argued as salient from the UK AIP.

ENR 1-10-4

2.4 Changes, Delays or Cancellation of a Flight Plan

2.4.1 It is essential that ATC is advised of cancellations, delays over 30 minutes and changes to flight plan details. A second flight plan cannot be used to amend the first. The original flight plan must first be cancelled and then a revised flight plan filed.

If it is the same aircraft, then filing a second plan without a cancellation of the 1st plan beforehand is, in my view, amending the first, but leaving 2 in the system and wasting capacity. And in breach of the AIP.

The Performance Review Unit at Eurocontrol have the mandate to look at these occurences and report on them. What 'teeth' they have to actually then do something about it is unclear.

Eurocontrol PRU Terms of Reference

[Lon More]

Been there too since the early days. Had a hate/hate relationship with the Supervisor and ended up doing more Flow than Radar.
Their names are legion; multiple flight plans with slightly different call signs; using reg. and flight number; requesting re-route when airborne; complete disregard of slot time; stating they didn't realise the distance to the entry point of the airspace was so little - the worst I ever saw of that was a dep. from Legoland (10 min. from the entry point) who got there about four hours early!
I once boarded a flight (No id discount; full fare paid) where the crew knew me and was asked to return to the terminal to phone and get them a better slot Didn't work BTW.
The ones who seemed to complain the loudest were the ones who tried the most underhand tricks.

( Thread drift - a certain turkey from Norwich once blocked the freq. for about 5 minutes complaining that he had not been allowed to fly direct through military airspace and that after 10 minutes in the air he was still no nearer his destination. When he finally shut up there was a flurry of radar vectors, climbs, descents, freq.changes etc. At the end an anonymous voice said, "Today you're going to see places you didn't even know existed"
Definitely not bootiful.)

[routechecker]

At IFPS level is extremelly hard to catch double fillings.

First, the only FPLs that get looked at by human eyes are the ones with something wrong in them and therefore in the manual queue.

Second, if something does catch our attention and prompts checking for a possible double, unless they've been really stupid and refiled with all the incriminating hints, theres no way for us to be sure, short of calling them and asking.
Not all lot of time for that these days.

Cheers

[White Hart]

routechecker - we often become aware of possible double/multiple filings by seeing very similar or unusual callsigns showing up on the DSM, sometimes followed by the disappearance of the callsign/FPL with the worst CTOT. A quick look at TACT usually adds weight to our suspicions - same destination; same off-blocks time; same a/c type etc etc, but only one FPL has an a/c registration shown.

If multiple filing is a problem, can IFPS staff not do something likewise, and take issue with the operators where necessary, or is it too impractical/unimportant? Are we allowed to take issue with operators locally if we think that this is going on, or can we inform CFMU, for instance? (would they be interested - surely they can see it too??)

This shouldn't pose any problem for genuine last minute refiles, but it might weed out the operators who like to hedge their bets during disruptive periods by multiple filing in advance - but only if somebody bothers to look at it, record such incidents, and report them to IFPS/CFMU.

(This doesn't stop the problem with the processing of the refiles themselves into NAS, though.)

[Itsonyatv]

Regarding White Hearts comment:-

The procedure shoud be changed. FPRSA should telephone the relevant VCR and advise of a late reroute, or of a Company attempting multiple refiles.

FPRSA is an automated system that will process any FPL or CHG message as soon as it is received from IFPS provided that it matches the required route in the database. This makes it difficult for flight plan supervisors to keep track of any late re-files processed in this way and the first that we know about it is when we receive an irate call from the tower asking who had changed the plan!

[chiglet]

Itson...
When we did FPRSA/HCS/9020D [call it what you will] at Manchester. We did let the various Towers/Sectors know [by 'phone] ASAP about any "Changes/Reroutes etc".
However, due to "various" reasons...our "task" has been transferred to Scottish.... In their defence......They don't know Manch [area] routes and they don't seem to have the staff to "rapidly modify FPLs" let alone telephone the ATSU with a "Change"....
watp,iktch

[5milesbaby]

Lon, that certain wild foul pilot used to air his views on Dover on the way back due to being descended underneath LUS down Boulogne way. A couple of CA1261/MOR's on consecutive days made him gobble his words back up, he's a bit more chicken in airing his views now..........

[White Hart]

Originally Posted by Itsonyatv

FPRSA is an automated system that will process any FPL or CHG message as soon as it is received from IFPS provided that it matches the required route in the database. This makes it difficult for flight plan supervisors to keep track of any late re-files processed in this way and the first that we know about it is when we receive an irate call from the tower asking who had changed the plan!

Itson - this shows there's a flaw with the system, then. Refiles, whether they be late, multiple or whatever, need to have the old FPL removed from NAS first, and a refiled one entered into NAS separately. This would reduce the problem significantly.

That's the trouble with automation - saves a lot of manual work, but ALWAYS creates a few new problems of its own.

I think the NAS part of the issue isn't the main part - the root cause of the problem (as described by GBALU53 and routechecker) stems fundamentally from IFPS/CFMU being unable to easily identify, and then deal effectively with the perpetrators, when multiple flight planning tactics are being used. I expect it will take a serious incident to ever get the issue looked at in any detail.

[GWYN]

Flowman / Pprune Radar et al: Can you outline the sanctions which are available to CFMU or national ANSPs to be used against AOs which continually flout the rules as per the original posting, and under what precise circumstances these sanctions are applied?

The evidence is that it is hard to do anything more than 'have a quiet word.' If the AO chooses to ignore this it appears that nothing further can realistically be done.

Is there a procedure to be followed should one become aware of units misusing the system?

Thanks for any advice.

[radar707]

I seem to recall a few years ago (and this may have been just a drunken dream) but there was a trial whereby if we spotted multiple plans in teh sytem to try and get round the flow regs, we were allowed to cancel all of the plans other than the most recently filed. Was this a dream was it a real trial or was it just a now long retired Glasgow assistant being a complete b4$t4rd.

[chiglet]

R707
No, it wasn't a dream and the ATSA was a great chap[ess].
I think that was SOP at Manch too, but only for a [VERY] short time, 'cos the "Airlines" complained.... so it was "chopped" PDQ
watp,iktch

[GBALU53]

Q Plans

If i am not miss-taken if we all did what was asked and filed a Q plan instead of trying to beat the system we would end up with less slots??

The bigger the company the more slots??

The hole of Europe must try and abide by the rules even if the flight plan Re-route system does not make to much sense but gets the aircraft in the air.

[White Hart]

Originally Posted by GBALU53

The hole of Europe must try and abide by the rules even if the flight plan Re-route system does not make to much sense but gets the aircraft in the air.

This will only work if IFPS/CFMU kick airline ass. At the airfields, we are already trying our best to keep everything on track - it's the airlines who are not playing ball.

BTW, although most Companies at LL have been guilty in the past, its not the Biggest Airline that causes us most grief with late/multiple refiles - its a select few of our European shorthaul operators who cause the worst headaches. If the refile scenario doesn't sort out a delay, the old trick of adding "hosp flt" used to be the next step - seems to have fallen out of favour at present.