Flight planned alternate
 

A few pilot colleagues of mine have been arguing (and both insisting that they are correct) regarding the airfield nominated as an alternate on the flight plan.

One side insists that by the flight plan being accepted that is evidence that the alternate has agreed for you to hold and use them if required.

The other side says it is for info only and that you must contact the airfield you wish to nominate separately to confirm if they will act as an alternate.

Could anyone here clear this up please?

Thanks,

Flight plans are dispatched via AFTN. As far as I know FPL is being validated neither for its alternate nor destination.

IFR plans are not sent to alternates but VFR plans are. If you look in the UK AIP, some airfields point out that filing a FPL on its own does not constitute a request for PPR (eg Farnborough).
We had a situation one sunday whereby an aircraft inbound to Northolt decided it wished to divert to Farnborough (crosswind I think) having (unknown to TAG and ATC) filed Farnborough as alternate, but was refused as it was not an emergency and all sunday slots were allocated; I believe Brize accepted it eventually; don't know why it didn't try Stansted, Luton or Gatwick though.

Thanks all, so it would appear to be the latter.

Don't think the validation takes into account the alternate and whether or not they will accept you. An ex-colleague of mine one departed to the london area and found out that his destination had closed de to lack of staff for fire cover and when he said he wanted to divert to Stansted he was told that it was NOTAMd not accepting non emergency diversions. Why the guy didn't know that before departing is probably why he is an ex-colleague.

I've seen flight plans for aircraft into Heathrow listing Heathrow as the alternate, on the basis that it has two runways, and if one runway closes, there is a second to land on. Not sure how that works if Heathrow is closed due to fog, but it was accepted in the system.

A strange discussion, indeed. It never came into my mind that a FPL would be passed to the airfield. I always assumed it is my duty as a pilot to make sure DEST and ALT are open to public traffic or file PPR by my own. ATC was only relevant for me for the flight phase, but neither APR nor DEP. It also happened not once, but more often that I had to come back to RADAR because TWR did not respond, so I never thought RADAR give something on airport ops. I rely on ATC to organize airport options only in case of emergency and they always helped me out, but did never expect to do something on ordinary ALT ???

In the military (UK) each daily flying boss nominates the unit/types' alternates and base ops normally contact the nominated alt and make an arrangement, sometimes resulting in refusals when an alt has reached theoretical parking capacity if they all diverted. A nominated alt would then remain open and honour their agreement even if their own base flying had ended unexpectedly.

In civvy world when a flight plan is addressed a copy is sent to the alt(s) by AFTN, so in theory, provided the AFTN address is actually read by someone, they will see the FPL and you would hope, remain available for it! But in the commercial world there's no guarantee of either!

The captain of course has responsiblity for a legal alt, and that includes whether it is published or NOTAM'd open - after that there will always be an element of fate, hence it is wise to have a couple if available. As far as I know permits and political relationships fall to the way side in the event of a plane needing to divert, but that doesn't mean the people meeting on the ground are that generous and forgiving.

NOT if the plan only gets sent (as 99.999% are) to the collective IFPS address if IFR, or the FIR collective address if VFR. IF you want it to go to the Alternate you have to make sure it's addressed to them - it won't go there as a matter of course.

Chilli backs up the point I made earlier; IFR flight plans do NOT automatically get sent to alternates hence are not an acceptable means of requesting PPR if you need to divert.

A few years ago I was using up some Diamond Club miles and flew from KSFO to EGLL, luckily towards the front of the aircraft:ok::ok:

We were originally booked on the lunchtime departure but, unfortunately, due bad weather had missed our connection. Thankfully good old UAL put us on the evening departure in the same cabin:D:D

We took off 30 mins late but were told by the crew we would get good tailwinds and be at EGLL ahead of schedule.

I was somewhat surprised to see us coast in over LND 15 minutes later than we should have landed but thought nothing more of it until, whilst in the OCK hold, noticed our destination airfield "jump" on the moving map!

20 or so minutes later we became, I believe, the first UAL B777 to land at EGKK.

Upon returning to work a day or so later, I was told our diversion apparently caused quite a stir even though it was our flight planned alternate - but not as much of a stir as it was to get someone to refuel the plane and then allow us to fly back to EGLL!!

From memory we finally disembarked at about 1930 some 5 hours after we should have done, and, 12 hours after we could have done if we had got on the right plane - Thank God they had plenty of Champagne on board :cool::cool::cool:

Every time I look at a FPL for aircraft heading to LHR with MAN filed as alternate, I do have to scratch my head and wonder. I mean I know many carriers would have engineering/ground handling contracts in place, but how often are there no diversion notams for MAN?

Plus most airlines file the same alternates, so if AMS/FRA/CDG/LHR etc close, there's a fair chance you won't be going to your filed alternate/s anyway

Every time I have announced I am in the missed approach the controller has responded with " say intentions ". I have always wound up at the commercial alternate, that is where the company wants me, which often is not the filed legal alternate.

From my experiene in real life, the alternate is more for radio failure than anything else. Apart from that, its just another piece of information that is never looked at. I for one work a fair bit of traffic in london and whenever something up, i am always asking intentions and alternate because we dont have full flight plan info. An example is all EGLL i/bs filing EGSS as an alternate......it is accepted but guaranteed they will oly take 6-10 divs only.
When theres something wrong at EGLL, you can bet you will not get your alternate just because of space issues and handling issues.
From my experience, it is only helpful in radio failure so that we in ATC have an idea of what you might do but unlikely to get it if there is a issue just because of capacity. I know EGCC is nominated as an alternate for A380s but they only have a certain amount of slots so once run out, EHAM, EBBR or LFPG here we go......