Flight Plan Addressing

[Mike Millar]

I've just found out an interesting thing about addressing flight plans in France, Benelux and Italy. I've been using Eurofpl lately and used it to file flight plans to Calais and on to Schaffen Diest for last weekend's fly-in. Normally Eurofpl adds all the correct addressees automatically. At Schaffen Diest I used Eurofpl to file to Calais and it only put in one addressee - EBBRZPZX, which is something to do with Brussels. Muttering under my breath I added LFACZTZX and LFACZPZX manually, wishing I'd just given my flightplan to the helpful guys in the well organised rally control. it seemed to work out OK in the air.

Afterwards I had a play with dummy flightplans and found that filing from France, Belgium, Holland and Italy the same thing happened, only the BRIA address local to the departure airfield was added. So I posted the question on the Eurofpl forum and the ever helpful Derek quickly replied that these countries now only require one addressee, the BRIA office or eqivalent local to the departure airfield. They add all the necessary addressees themselves! Can't find anything about it in the French AIP ENR section 1.11. It doesn't seem to apply to UK to France flightplans, it's the departure country that does the addressing, if they operate it that way. Germany doesn't seem to have caught up yet. Maybe one of our air traffic experts can enlighten us. It certainly simplifies the process over the UK AFPox addressing system!

Mike

[Donald Walker]

Can't find anything about it in the French AIP ENR section 1.11.

How about this from ENR 1.11-5?

b) Stop flights
In the case of a stop flight for each stop of which flight plans are filed at
the first departure aerodrome, the following procedure is applied:
For a flight whose departure point is located on the French territory, the
flight plans of intermediate stops located in France must be sent
directly by the control office where they are filed to all bodies concerned
by the flight.
For intermediate stops located on foreign territories, the corresponding
flight plans are sent to the sole control offices concerned which will
transmit them to the bodies concerned.

[Mike Millar]

Hmmm - could be. It's a bit obscure isn't it. That section refers initially to:

"The filed flight plan messages are transmitted and addressed as follows
by the air traffic body operating at the departure aerodrome"

So I guess flightplans files on Eurofpl may be treated as the equivalent. Here's the full reply I got from Eurofpl:

Greetings Mike,

This addressing is intentional. French authorities have requested that all VFR departures from LF aerodromes be addressed solely to the associated BRIA for that aerodrome. The BRIA then assumes all responsibility for addressing and DEP/ARR coordination for enroute units. You'll see this type of addressing for many other countries as well, including the Netherlands.

Best regards,

- Derek
EuroFPL Admin

I guess from that the French authorities contacted Eurofpl about it. Whatever, it saves a lot of puzzling over addressees. Unfortunately for flightplans filed from UK we still have to to add the full list although Eurofpl, and to a large extent AFpex add them automatically.

[John Dean]

The French regard the BRIA as responsible for transmitting flight plans for flights starting in France.

If you file a flightplan on AFPEx from France to England, a second plan with all the same details will be issued by the BRIA.

[Mike Millar]

Thanks John. I think that explains what's going on.

Mike