I just noticed that parts of the October 2017 amendment to Part-SERA (“SERA-C”) entered into force in August 2016:
(3)
in point SERA.4001(d), the introductory phrase is replaced by the following:
‘Unless a shorter period of time has been prescribed by the competent authority for domestic VFR flights, a flight plan for any flight planned to operate across international borders or to be provided with air traffic control service or air traffic advisory service shall be submitted at least 60 minutes before departure, or, if submitted during flight, at a time which will ensure its receipt by the appropriate ATS unit at least 10 minutes before the aircraft is estimated to reach:’;
I read this to mean that any IFR plan must be submitted at least 60 minutes before departure.
huv wrote:
I read this to mean that any IFR plan must be submitted at least 60 minutes before departure.
That is the rule already. However it is not enforced by Eurocontrol and many people have successfully filed IFR flight plans with much shorter notice.
(It may be enforced by your flight planning service, though. E.g. The Swedish AIS flight plan submission service rejects IFR flight plans with less than 60 minutes leadtime. Autorouter has no objections…)
In today’s electronic filing, it would be a pointless rule. I wonder why people in the establishment still waste their time creating these rules.
VFR flight plans are often processed manually. There is an ARO or similar that gets the plan, figures out who has an interest in it and then forwards it. That can require more than a few minutes.
For IFR in Eurocontrol land, it’s instantaneous. Eurocontrol maintain the full addressing rules of all sectors and forward the messages. Certain countries have manual flight plan correction desks which look at incoming IFR flight plans which pass Eurocontrol rules but still require changes to match operational requirements. If the flight plan comes at short notice, they don’t have the opportunity to modify them (which only becomes visible to the pilot as a clearance).
In real life, there are virtually no problems with filing IFR on short notice.
Certain countries have manual flight plan correction desks which look at incoming IFR flight plans which pass Eurocontrol rules but still require changes to match operational requirements. If the flight plan comes at short notice, they don’t have the opportunity to modify them (which only becomes visible to the pilot as a clearance).
You mean those who refuse to supply Eurocontrol with full details of restrictions in their airspace, so local jobs are protected correcting these “valid” flight plans 
Partly yes. Sometimes it is difficult to feed the Eurocontrol rules database with everything there is, especially when it is very dynamic. The diligence a country applies when feeding the Eurocontrol rules database varies greatly.
We get regular complaints from ANSPs when a route comes through that they don’t like for a particular reason. Our answer is always the same: supply the correct rules to Eurocontrol and thy will be done. I believe that is the only sensible reaction even though not always appreciated. Why have such an expensive and sophisticated system that can handle it and not use it?
One example: Croatia has sent us dozens of complaints about IFR flight plans from/to Brac outside of ATS hours which have to be Z/Y. So easy to create an IFPS restriction that makes the airport IFR at certain times only. It’s their choice though — keep complaining (which we ignore) or get it done 
Maybe I should add that my post above intended to give a formal answer to the original question, and just make a point that it has now become an EU regulation.
Airborne_Again wrote:
That is the rule already
many people have successfully filed IFR flight plans with much shorter notice.
I have indeed, see my previous post.
Peter wrote:
pointless rule.
For IFR, the IFPS User Manual is the authoritative source: https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/default/files/content/documents/nm/network-operations/HANDBOOK/ifps-users-manual-current.pdf
3 (2) Flight plans shall be submitted to the IFPS for processing at least three hours before the
EOBT where possible. The IFPS shall also accept for processing those messages that are,
for operational reasons, filed less than three hours before the EOBT of that flight.
Yes, see post #3 for the reasons.
If filing for depature time X – how much of a delay can I have before the flightplan is deleted?
Can I depart early?
