Cruising at FL395 in Pacific airspace ?
 

Hi,

I was watching the Justplanes A340 Tahiti Nui DVD recently and noticed that somewhere during the flight between Tahiti and Tokyo, the aircraft is set up to cruise at FL395 ! Both the EADI and the MCP (not sure if these are the correct Airbus names though ;)) show FL395 so the aircraft is not in a shallow climb to a higher level or anything.

Also, I don't think the flight goes through airspace with metric levels (the closest would be FL12000m or FL394).

So, what might be going on here ? Somebody suggested that the aircraft was cleared to cruise in a vertical block of airspace (e.g. between FL370-410). I never heard of such a clearance but maybe it is valid in these remote areas with little traffic ?

Anybody ?

Björn

Old Smokey will tell you about block clearances in the N Pacific which may or may not be the reason for your observation.

I seem to remember a thread along those lines previously...

HTH.

Thx SR71, did a search with Block+clearance and found the thread !

Björn