Mostly the ATC-strike region is small – say 30 mins’ flying time, so even if you had to actually cancel IFR, it should not be a big deal, even if you are in IMC.
But as you say, few care.
Peter wrote:
filing a VFR section
Today I did witness a conversation between German ATC and a crew about such a flight plan. German ATC are the masters of precision so they asked about what the intentions were after point XYZ. Crew then replied they wanted to stay IFR and just had to file this because of crazy slots. Then the lady said “hmm” and started to coordinate. Then I had to switch frequencies. I think in most other places nobody would care and you simply continue to fly IFR.
Peter wrote:
France is the world leader in CTOTs normally, and I solve them by filing VFR through the “staff shortage” region. Then there is no CTOT, and on the actual flight there is never (IME) any reason to actually cancel IFR.
For me it was even easier last few times (hope it will stay like this) – Croatian ATC told me just to ignore it 
and continue with filed EOBT.
France is the world leader in CTOTs normally, and I solve them by filing VFR through the “staff shortage” region. Then there is no CTOT, and on the actual flight there is never (IME) any reason to actually cancel IFR. Details e.g. here.
I can imagine that if you got a long CTOT, say 1hr, but the filing agency didn’t notify you of it, ATC may well force you to land. But that is a filing agency / email antispam problem really.
Emails are failing more nowadays. Google has just implemented a hard policy on requiring either SPF or DKIM. And it absolutely dumps everything else regardless of content or whether the sender is “whitelisted” which according to various suggestions (nobody actually knows). This is dumb but google owns the world now and most people use gmail so they got you by the balls. SPF is impossible to fix once and for all time but most domain hosting services which offer email sending also offer free DKIM. Foreflight probably need to sort this out and implement alternate messaging e.g. telegram. I run a server which sends out notification emails and suddenly got a 100% loss rate to gmail users, so I fixed it by turning on DKIM.
Tigerflyer wrote:
Some trips ago I departed my home airfield EDWF with a Z flightplan. Fpl filed with autorouter. No info about CTOT and guess what. ATC refused my IFR pick up because I had a CTOT. I had to go back to my departure airfield. I refused to land there and was told that I have to fly over the airfield to get me in the system. I did but about 3 to 4 min before reaching the airfield ATC gave me IFR pick up. The weather was fine but it could be bad. Since then I‘m not so relaxed when departing with a Z flightplan. Thank you ATC. You are making your problem to my. Thats the way the world runs.
This is just ridiculous. I can’t imagine such stupidity from ATC. I really had better opinion on German ATC.
Which one?
CTOT is indeed a German PITA nowadays. A few days ago I received a CTOT while already on take-off at an airfield where I had to pay a serious PPR fee just to get it open – guess what, I had to pay twice as I had to return and wait. I have no idea what is going on in the country, but it must be pretty bad.
Some trips ago I departed my home airfield EDWF with a Z flightplan. Fpl filed with autorouter. No info about CTOT and guess what. ATC refused my IFR pick up because I had a CTOT. I had to go back to my departure airfield. I refused to land there and was told that I have to fly over the airfield to get me in the system. I did but about 3 to 4 min before reaching the airfield ATC gave me IFR pick up. The weather was fine but it could be bad. Since then I‘m not so relaxed when departing with a Z flightplan. Thank you ATC. You are making your problem to my. Thats the way the world runs.
I flew this morning departing VFR and picking up IFR after departure. I filed the Z flight plan with Foreflight and I was a bit paranoid about getting a CTOT and not being notified.
I was ready to call ATC to double check, but then I got the notification from Foreflight on the app, via email and SMS about my CTOT, that was 30 mins later than filed EOBT time.
So it seems to work, and what happen to the OP was an unfortunate situation…
It is getting a real pain and I wonder when we will have the first accident officially attributed to “CTOT rush”.
Agree, it is adding a lot of unnecessary and distracting stress during safety critical pre-flight/taxi/take off phase.
