Eurocontrol CTOT / airport slot assignments for light GA and how to get around them

I want to know if there is anyway to send a ready for departure (REA) message through the Autorouter interface (telegram or otherwise)

Why you need to send that? I don’t think anyone sends REA/DEP for IFR flights in controlled airspace in Europe, it’s only required for crossing Atlantic or going to Africa but not when you stay within the IFPZ…

A proper anorak could set up a gateway to the AFPEX client application, which can send anything on the AFTN

As regards sending a DEP, there are valid scenarios e.g. departing from a “farm strip”, international, FP needed, but can’t get through to local FIS to open the FP for you. You might even be flying non-radio (yes I know the cases where you can do that cross-border are really narrow).

Or sending an ARR (non UK arrival scenario e.g. France) after landing at a “farm strip” e.g. St Yan LFLN with nobody in the tower (I did that once, but escaped the €1000 bill because French S&R phoned up the fire crew there, to be told the plane is parked there and in one piece).

Coming back to the self-generated DEP, it would be awfully handy to send an, ahem, somewhat delayed DEP, when a CTOT has been issued It is very obvious that once you are airborne, nobody in the system cares at all whether you actually departed half an hour earlier, because the need for the CTOT is generally artificial / a software artefact caused by factors not related to GA (sector capacity reached due to big jet traffic, ATC industrial action, etc). I guess there may be “genuine” CTOTs sometimes but when you get this sort of thing you realise, time and time again, that the Eurocontrol system is comprehensively broken and – as far as light GA goes, flying in the “empty void” of FL100-200 – full of bollox.

Peter wrote:

as far as light GA goes, flying in the “empty void” of FL100-200

Those levels may be empty, but you still need a controller and that controller will likely have to deal with traffic above FL200, too.

Sure, but that is an argument made using the terms of reference which were created by those constructing the situation

Also, explain how VFR right across Switzerland is “OK”, when ATC there are on strike and you can’t do the exact same route IFR. Same in France.

These are all tools in the “IFR toolbox”. If they work, they are valid. ATC would not clear you somewhere if it wasn’t “safe IAW their terms of reference” so if something works it is by definition safe

Aviation has been gaming the system since for ever. Anybody old in the jet business will tell you stories about how they gamed the CTOT system, and after each batch of those the unix coders at Brussels went to work to plug yet another “hole”. They will also tell you about the diverts, to avoid arrival slots (filing for Biggin Hill and diverting to Heathrow, and doing this a few times a week for years).

boscomantico wrote:

Interesting. Which airport‘s TWR/GND refuses to send a ready message?

I don’t know if it’s still the case, but I have had Southend EGMC tell me that they would not do this before and it needs to be completed by “your company” which is hilarious sitting in an SEP. There are also many larger commercial airports which will not do it, but they are barely relevant to GA.

Ibra wrote:

Why you need to send that? I don’t think anyone sends REA/DEP for IFR flights in controlled airspace in Europe, it’s only required for crossing Atlantic or going to Africa but not when you stay within the IFPZ…

This is not true. We send ready messages in the airline world nearly every day in the summer within Europe, it is one of the only ways we have of actively trying to improve a CTOT without going down the road of re-filing. The majority of the time this is done via ATC but there are airports which insist it is done from your side, which in work means calling up a flight planning department who will send a REA for us. The exact mechanism by which they do this is unknown to me but I imagine via some NOP interface.

Because IFR flights in Switzerland are controlled, whereas VFR flights (below FL130/150) are not controlled.

The thread I linked is worth a read

Airborne_Again wrote:

Those levels may be empty, but you still need a controller and that controller will likely have to deal with traffic above FL200, too.

How much controller workload is involved in “XXXXX, Radar Contact”, and quite some time later “XXXX, Contact XXX on YYY, good-bye”?

We send ready messages in the airline world nearly every day in the summer within Europe, it is one of the only ways we have of actively trying to improve a CTOT without going down the road of re-filing. The majority of the time this is done via ATC but there are airports which insist it is done from your side, which in work means calling up a flight planning department who will send a REA for us.

Got it REA is sent IFPS by flight planning to improve CTOT when to local controllers would not do it? but I gather ATC won’t send DEP following your REA after takeoff?

I was told DEP message are never sent within IFPZ, either ATC manually activate or FPL is automatically activated once you pop up with FPL squawk on radar coverage areas