European Routes ? HELP!

Eurocontrol is fun! The first place I'd start is the Route Catalog in the secure CFMU website. Right hand side of the page, in the same area as the validator (Free Text Editor).

Plug in, for example, LFPG to KJFK/KPHL/KCLT/KORD and it will spit out all kinds of routes to various transition fixes.

Once you do that and get a route that validates save it somewhere! After you do that for 30 or so, you'll start to figure out where fixes and such are and be able to piece together routes. I have a feeling things are somewhat simplified with us using SABRE though; I can look up every airway to see the points on it.

When all else fails remember, "Will accept IFPS changes ". I was bored and just playing with routes the other day out of Amsterdam. For the life of me i couldn't get a route to work avoiding northeast France and ending up over a southern transition point. Built a direct which I knew wouldn't validate, filed it with "Will accept IFPS changes" in the strip and after a few minutes i got back a good route. Don't like doing that, but I was stumped.
 
BigFellor said:
Eurocontrol is fun! The first place I'd start is the Route Catalog in the secure CFMU website. Right hand side of the page, in the same area as the validator (Free Text Editor). Plug in, for example, LFPG to KJFK/KPHL/KCLT/KORD and it will spit out all kinds of routes to various transition fixes. Once you do that and get a route that validates save it somewhere! After you do that for 30 or so, you'll start to figure out where fixes and such are and be able to piece together routes. I have a feeling things are somewhat simplified with us using SABRE though; I can look up every airway to see the points on it. When all else fails remember, "Will accept IFPS changes ". I was bored and just playing with routes the other day out of Amsterdam. For the life of me i couldn't get a route to work avoiding northeast France and ending up over a southern transition point. Built a direct which I knew wouldn't validate, filed it with "Will accept IFPS changes" in the strip and after a few minutes i got back a good route. Don't like doing that, but I was stumped.
Click to expand...

Agreed...save good routes. They won't always be good the next time but some are. I have a word doc with some saved on my desktop. You can always look up other recent routes used by other airlines too. And when all else fails and you can't figure it out, keep your sanity by typing IFPS Reroute Accepted in line 18.
 
Another protip that works all over the world. When in a bind, plagiarize! Find someone going your way (or at least to your exit point) and copy that route. Voila! Delta did the work for ya!
 
nyk said:
I actually took on a challenege doing a route from FCO to JFK going through Paris airspace and I think I got a reject message from IFPS for over an hour. I looked on the RADs page and didn't find anything as far as preferred routes. I also did one from CDG and couldnt find a route from that page and end of the track to an STAR so I kind of got a little frustrated. I knew there was a reason I never wanted to go to Paris lol
Click to expand...
Like @PlaneFan82 said, if you have access to the secured portal of Eurocontrol, they have a database of EVERY single route that can be used that tranverses the European airspace. From FCO-JFK, I'm sure there is a route that is stored in that site.
 
deltabobo said:
Like @PlaneFan82 said, if you have access to the secured portal of Eurocontrol, they have a database of EVERY single route that can be used that tranverses the European airspace. From FCO-JFK, I'm sure there is a route that is stored in that site.
Click to expand...
Make sure to READ what the errors are telling you. Especially in Paris, it is mainly an altitude thing. When we fly out of CDG to the states and come up through England, we cannot climb any higher than 280 until SANDY (or the first waypoint in London FIR). Preferred routes don't necessarily exist like they do in the states---it is a completely different concept. What works one day, will not necessarily work for another day. The easy way out is to put "IFPS REROUTE ACCEPTED" in line 18, but if you sit down and find out WHAT the error is saying (using the RAD), then routing will become really easy. Remember, the IFPS does not take into account airspace that you the operator cannot operate over (example is Switzerland and Austria with a CMB call sign----or anything military).
 
PlaneFan82 said:
Make sure to READ what the errors are telling you. Especially in Paris, it is mainly an altitude thing. When we fly out of CDG to the states and come up through England, we cannot climb any higher than 280 until SANDY (or the first waypoint in London FIR). Preferred routes don't necessarily exist like they do in the states---it is a completely different concept. What works one day, will not necessarily work for another day. The easy way out is to put "IFPS REROUTE ACCEPTED" in line 18, but if you sit down and find out WHAT the error is saying (using the RAD), then routing will become really easy. Remember, the IFPS does not take into account airspace that you the operator cannot operate over (example is Switzerland and Austria with a CMB call sign----or anything military).
Click to expand...
If you put IFPS reroute accepted in the arc strip how do you know you'll have the fuel for whatever they give you? Or am I just being paranoid stemmed from my ZW days of min fuel ?
 
nyk said:
If you put IFPS reroute accepted in the arc strip how do you know you'll have the fuel for whatever they give you? Or am I just being paranoid stemmed from my ZW days of min fuel ?
Click to expand...

You have to take the section of the route that they change and edit your route and re-compute the flight plan. Pay attention to the flight levels as well.
 
nyk said:
Do you still file a route that's not valid with that message ?
Click to expand...

When they send you back the route, it is essentially filed with Eurocontrol. But after I rerun the flight plan with approved route, I refile it with all addresses in NFP.
 
nyk said:
If you put IFPS reroute accepted in the arc strip how do you know you'll have the fuel for whatever they give you? Or am I just being paranoid stemmed from my ZW days of min fuel ?
Click to expand...
That is a risk also. I have had reroutes that have been a couple hundred miles away from the original FP/R. Remember, Eurocontrol will only provide a route to your first oceanic fix. You do file it with the RMK in line 18, and then await the ACK message with the new routing. This is why I do not endorse this practice and instruct many dispatchers to use it as a very last resort. At my shop, we use CFMU Portal all the time for route issues..
 
The CFMU portal is the way to go. It takes out the guess work and you plug it into your flight planning system and move on with life. For origin/destination city pairs that CFMU portal did not have routes for, I plugged in another city close to that airport and just adjusted the routing for the departure from your actual origin. Trust me, I would spend forever trying to figure this stuff out and a member on this board that I worked with showed me the link on the CFMU portal and it made my life so much easier! :)
 
PlaneFan82 said:
That is a risk also. I have had reroutes that have been a couple hundred miles away from the original FP/R. Remember, Eurocontrol will only provide a route to your first oceanic fix. You do file it with the RMK in line 18, and then await the ACK message with the new routing. This is why I do not endorse this practice and instruct many dispatchers to use it as a very last resort. At my shop, we use CFMU Portal all the time for route issues..
Click to expand...

I had one of those recently. Coming out of Heathrow i was trying to stay at FL260 under some turbulence for a while. Well, you can't go through Manchester airspace that low and CFMU came back with a route that went out of Heathrow, south east almost to Amsterdam, back north west over the North Sea, through Scottish airspace, then back to my Irish transition point. No thanks. Captain, you'll hit some bumps to rock the folks to sleep.

Moral of the story, plot the route!

And I'll have to look at that ATREX departure out of Paris, you have me wondering about the altitude restriction now.

It's funny, i remember feeling so overwhelmed in training with all the routing stuff and quirks of the airspace over there. Now I know a departure just by a restriction, lol.
 
womanpilot73 said:
When they send you back the route, it is essentially filed with Eurocontrol. But after I rerun the flight plan with approved route, I refile it with all addresses in NFP.
Click to expand...

Usually. When they're being nice they'll send you a MAN first then eventually they'll send back an ACK with the route amendment.

They weren't cooperating with me the other day and sent back a REJ when i was trying to find a route. :bang:
 
BigFellor said:
Usually. When they're being nice they'll send you a MAN first then eventually they'll send back an ACK with the route amendment.

They weren't cooperating with me the other day and sent back a REJ when i was trying to find a route. :bang:
Click to expand...

That's the French for ya... :)
 
BigFellor said:
Usually. When they're being nice they'll send you a MAN first then eventually they'll send back an ACK with the route amendment.

They weren't cooperating with me the other day and sent back a REJ when i was trying to find a route. :bang:
Click to expand...

Oh, other good tools are the Flight List and eHelpdesk. Right side of page, just above the section where the link to the validator is.

Once you open the Flight List, select the Aircraft Operator tab and plug in the airline of choice, DAL, UAL, AAL, BAW, KLM, etc. Adjust the times depending on if you're looking for eastbound or westbound routes and voila, you'll get a list of all the flights for that airline and you can see what routes they've filed.

Also from the Flight List you can keep an eye on any regulations and delays affecting your flights. If you have a delay you can click on the box next to your flight to put a check mark in it then click on eHelpdesk. That will open up a window to select a reason you're requesting an improvement to your delay or exemption from the regulation.

The French are terrible for various regulations and delays and I've actually gotten out of one by putting a request into the eHelpdesk and telling them, "Filed low to avoid abc regulation. Now nable to climb fast enough to get above xyz regulation." Hey, it worked!
 
I think I got the hang of this now. I've noticed that navtech would put in dct and that usually is what would cause my issues. I did a flight plan from IST to the states and were it had dcts I just found airways and it validated. On occasion it would tell me about I needed to be in between certain FL. Once I put it on a airway it all worked out.
 
nyk said:
I think I got the hang of this now. I've noticed that navtech would put in dct and that usually is what would cause my issues. I did a flight plan from IST to the states and were it had dcts I just found airways and it validated. On occasion it would tell me about I needed to be in between certain FL. Once I put it on a airway it all worked out.
Click to expand...

Yeah unless you're in Ireland, direct ist verboten.
 
That issue goes back to my original posting about how you guys have FOMS set up. If you aren't sure, contact Navtech and have them help you get the backside of the system set up so you aren't getting directs like that. The biggest issue we had was not getting it to validate because of flight levels. It was the "warn" setting I told you about before and Navtech helped us fix it. In your case, you likely have it set in FOMS to put in directs and that is an easy fix.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top