How often are aircraft allowed bypass waypoints?
 

Its sort of a simple question really are aircraft allowed regularly bypass waypoints for example a flight from Cork to Girona after passing INSUN is scheduled (according to CFMU) to fly to LND then onto DOLUR but regularly it has been allowed to proceed directly from INSUN to DOLUR, is this regular practice? And I ask this generally for all routes not route specific.

Thank you! :)

It depends. Occasionally we can fly an entire 4-5 hour flight from across Europe and not pass overhead a single planned waypoint (ie, each and every one is bypassed by a direct routing).

It varies from day to day and sector to sector. Just from my personal observation, Maastricht does a fantastic job on coordinating direct routings, while in Spain you very rarely, if ever, get them.

Thanks for the replys guys! Guess those stories about Spanish ATC are really true then :}

Many times if you're "just passing through" an FIR ATC will clear you to the exit point for that FIR.

From my 13 years in this business - rarely.
Especially in Sweden and Germany.

The Spanish were always very good for direct routings but since the recession have stopped. I believe there are political reasons.. work to rule etc.

The French are pretty good for directs when flying northbound Brest usually always give you direct delog which is a direct across their whole sector , or is that when flying southbound its been a while since i flew over france.And they have fantastic accents (the female:Es)