ATI Blog

After little more than one month into a planned 5-month trial, Oakland Oceanic has cancelled the Central Eastern Pacific Flexible Route (i.e. Tracks) program between the continental United States and Hawaii. During the brief trial period, Flex Routes only replaced the fixed ATS Routes a handful of times.

The FAA plans to reevaluate the fuel models and develop improvements to the program. Originally based upon B-767 performance specifications, the CEP Flex Routes intended to use daily weather information to create more efficient routes to and from Hawaii. The details of the program were previously reported in this blog.

During the trial period the FAA increased coordination with navigation database service providers to ensure all possible CEP waypoints were included in FMS database updates. The daily NOTAMs for Oakland Oceanic indicated whether the program was operational each day and flight planning organizations routinely included the NOTAMs to their clients. But the FAA has decided to make adjustments before relaunching the program later this year.

Stay tuned for updates.

Ref. KZOA NOTAM A0922/09

One of the most overlooked procedures in the North Atlantic airspace is the requirement for all aircraft not assigned a track to make standard meteorological reports with every position report. Oakland Oceanic recently issued a reminder, in the form of a NOTAM, that all waypoints within the Oakland OCA are designated as Meteorological reporting points.

The Ⓜ symbol that normally appears next to waypoints that require met reporting had been mistakenly removed from Jeppesen charts. Crews are reminded to append met information to all position reports within the Oakland OCA FIR.

For proper information to include and the sequence of meteorological reports, see the Communications Log section of all ATI plotting charts.

Ref. KZOA NOTAM A1737/08

An operational trial of flexible routes (i.e. Tracks) is being conducted, FL290 and above between the continental United States and Hawaii. Although the program is voluntary, operators utilizing the Flex Routes will be given altitude priority. The trial is planned to end 31 May 2009, but may be extended.

Based upon best winds en route, Oakland Oceanic publishes two one-way routes in each direction daily. Unlike the PACOTS and NATS, CEP Flex Routes are not named alphabetically. Eastbound routes are titled HSCEP (Honolulu-San Francisco Central Eastern Pacific) and HLCEP (Honolulu-Los Angeles). Westbound routes are LHCEP (Los Angeles-Honolulu) and SHCEP (San Francisco-Honolulu).

Like the majority of airways to Hawaii, the CEP Flex Routes link northern and southern California to the island state. Use of these routes is not limited to flights involving Los Angeles, San Francisco or Honolulu. Operators not flying between the city pairs used to define the Flex Routes should select the track in the appropriate direction that is most beneficial for their flight. The routes will be published by 0200Z and are valid from 1500-1400Z (based upon time entering Oceanic airspace).

The CEP Flex Routes constitute preferred routes between the continental US and Hawaii. When winds aloft favor the ATS routes the Flex Routes will simply state that Standard ATS routes are effective. When Flex Routes are active they are defined by waypoints comprised of whole degrees of latitude and longitude.

When CEP Flex Routes are active some ATS routes will be unavailable since standard lateral separation between the CEP Flex Routes and ATS routes must be maintained. Airways that do not assure necessary separation will be unavailable at altitudes that conflict with CEP Flex Route traffic.

Similar to NAT Tracks, the CEP Flex Tracks are defined by waypoint combinations using whole degrees of LAT/LONG. The FAA and navigation database suppliers have coordinated to ensure all waypoints used to define CEP Flex Tracks are in the FMS navigation database (NDB). Pilots must use extra caution when selecting these waypoints from the database since the coding may be unfamiliar to many users.

The ARINC 424 coding of LAT/LONG waypoints in the Central Eastern Pacific uses the following convention. XXNYY
XX = Latitude.
N= Indicates Northern hemisphere and replaces the 1 when longitude is greater than 99.
YY = Ten and single digits of the Longitude component.
(i.e. the digits following the 1 when Longitude is greater than 99 degrees)
For example: 34N133W is coded as 34N33

KZOA NOTAM # A5257/08 (Part 1 thru 7) announcing the CEP Flex Route program can be viewed at:
https://www.notams.jcs.mil/dinsQueryWeb/queryRetrievalMapAction.do

The following is an example of the Track Definition Message when the CEP Flex Tracks were not active:

A0353/09 – (TDM TRK HSCEP 09012215002 AMDT
0901221500 0901231400
CEBEN CIVIT CORTT CUNDU CREAN
RTS/PHNL MKK CLUTS CEBEN
CREAN PIRAT OSI KSFO
RMK/NO FLEX TRACKS STD CEP ATS ROUTES IN USE TODAY
CANCELS NOTAM A0347/09 AND CORRECTS DATE.
22 JAN 15:00 2009 UNTIL 23 JAN 14☺) 2009. CREATED: 22 JAN 00:55

The following is an example of the Track Definition Message when the CEP Flex Tracks were active:

A0729/09 - (TDM TRK HSCEP 090210150001
0902101500 0902111400
AUNTI 29N150W 33N143W 36N135W ALLBE
RTS/PHNL MKK APACK AUNTI
ALLBE PIRAT OSI KSFO
RMK/0. 10 FEB 15:00 2009 UNTIL 11 FEB 14:00 2009. CREATED: 10 FEB 01:16 2009

Notice that the TDM includes preferred departure and arrival routing between the airports and Oakland OCA FIR for aircraft departing PHNL and arriving KSFO.