Because operators choosing to use a self-service flight planning system (FPS) face some significant challenges when flying in Europe, Universal Weather and Aviation (Booth No. 643) has developed UVflightplanner.com to leverage the local knowledge and hands-on experience of its London-based European Operations Centre (EOC) to actively manage every flight plan it files into Eurocontrol.
These challenges include scheduled route availability document (RAD) changes and other unscheduled route availability alterations such as changes by Eurocontrol due to airway closure, weather or congestion. According to Universal Weather, one challenge is the lag that exists between when RAD changes occur–scheduled or unscheduled–and when an FPS can update the information in its database. This means that any flight plan created by an FPS during this lag period and affected by a RAD change can get rejected by Eurocontrol. This forces the user to refile an amended flight plan, leading to loss of time, inconvenience of trying to figure out how to fix the flight plan and, in many cases, additional FPS usage charges.
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