Thank you, jwoolard. Got it!
Today even airports don’t read it anymore. Most often they don’t have AFTN addresses
That’s not correct, surely? Every airport uses the AFTN for flight related messages. The small places have little use for it (e.g. Goodwood) for arriving traffic. They might have offered a useful service for departing traffic (FP filing and DEP messages) and this will now end, but IMHO all pilots who “go places” will have an online means by now. It is almost impossible to fly anywhere seriously without a mobile internet connection.
NATS have made it clear that this charge is only for business users. So the vast majority of users won’t be affected.
I think they just fished out obvious company names. Quite obviously so because several totally private pilots I know got that email. These pilots could reapply under their personal name.
Apart from airfields (who get a different account anyway, which doesn’t auto logout after X minutes) there will be very few real business users of Afpex. The API was never published.
I guess NATS don’t care about the additional clutter on London Info, not the loss of facilities at these smaller airports, because it’s not their problem. Perhaps the CAA could set in and resolve the problem, as they are the ones that will be left with cluttered frequencies trying to open flight plans.
I agree, and it will make London Info into an even more marginal (useless) service which even fewer people will bother to talk to – which is not what the CAA wants because the service has probably stopped quite a lot of CAS busts, especially by foreign pilots arriving in the UK on an IFR clearance, and then got handed over to “London 124.6” shortly after London Control disposed of the flight plan 
It cannot be in anybody’s interest to kick the smaller airfields off the AFTN, because eventually London Info will need more desks to handle the workload, and each fully costed ATC desk costs around GBP 1M/year. That is H24 and radar, and London Info employs FISOs so the cost will be lower, but allowing the many smaller airfields AFTN access must save a lot of money within NATS.
Well obviously I use EasyVFR for filing my flight plans. Those plans get filed instantly via our RocketRoute partnership. VFR plans only are really catered for.
It’s free for PocketFMS Frequent Flyer Members, with no limitation on the number of plans.
We’ve had a very small number of issues reported from members about plans going missing, and in all cases R/R investigated and made amendements to their system which solved the problem.
Flying from Ireland, I need a VFR flight plan for pretty much every flight that I make.
Prior to this, I went to extreme lengths to get an Afpex address. While it’s complained about bitterly by UK pilots, it’s really not that hard to use (if you know how to fill up a paper flight plan) and instantly puts your plan into the system.
I rarely use it now that EasyVFR can do that same thing, but I still log in every so often, as if you don’t do so, they will diable your password.
NATS have made it clear that this charge is only for business users. So the vast majority of users won’t be affected.
There is a difference in functionality, from what I can remember. Airport type users have access to certain functions, that pilot users don’t.
Prior to Afpex, “small grass field with radio or AFIS only” could never activate a flight plan, they had no knowledge of your plan, and they couldn’t send an arrival message. The advent of Afpex give this functionality to these small airfields. But very few of their visitors needs this, so I suspect most will abandon it, and traffic will be back to London info or other units asking to open flight plans etc.
I guess NATS don’t care about the additional clutter on London Info, not the loss of facilities at these smaller airports, because it’s not their problem. Perhaps the CAA could set in and resolve the problem, as they are the ones that will be left with cluttered frequencies trying to open flight plans.
dp
Just had this from Rocketroute – seems that might be able to offer a cheaper answer for business users who need their own AFTN address.
RR do not give you your own AFTN address but there are other companies that do. It costs around 100 € a month plus traffic but who really needs an AFTN address? Today even airports don’t read it anymore. Most often they don’t have AFTN addresses but only SITA and even that is disappearing.
There are so many ways to file flight plans, I am not scared about being stuck because of a non working system. I can even call Eurocontrol by phone if I have to or the national AIS. German AIS will always help if you need them. Yesterday I needed a VFR flight plan to depart from a controlled Austrian aerodrome and they sent me to their homebriefing terminals. The job was done in 5 minutes.
Last year in Egypt I had my plan filed via AFTN. The AIS guy at the airport was pissed about that because I was the first plane in months and his only job was to file and monitor flight plans. So he deleted my flight plan and filed it again.
BTW: autorouter is going to get VFR flight plan filing… one day 
I now use the EuroGA router for IFR flight plan filing, and use EuroFPL as a backup and for all VFR FPs.
Skydemon uses EuroFPL for FP filing… it was actually me who introduced SD to them
I find the RR user interface slightly impenetrable, but that is just me. I know others like it.
I’ve gone off Rocketroute as they have messed it up a few times and they don’t understand my type of operations.
Just had this from Rocketroute – seems that might be able to offer a cheaper answer for business users who need their own AFTN address.
They also link to this NATS release – access will continue to be free for individual recreational users.
Obviously NATS missed a huge trick by making AFPEX a Java app instead of a normal website, which would have been much more useful (Ipads, etc).
Their explanation was that it had to run in some ATC environments where this was needed. IMHO, it was done in Java to justify the subcontractor’s huge fee (Comsoft in Germany?).
One can run it on an Ipad over remote desktop but you need to be quite into IT to make it run.
what would be the cheapest option when traveling from UK, which I do a couple of times a year from a gliding site not in the system?
IFR: Autorouter or EuroFPL
VFR: EuroFPL
EuroFPL permits up to 10 filings free of charge in a rolling 30-day period
So, for someone like me, who uses Olivia when in France, and phones the Bria when that fails , and lives outside the UK, what would be the cheapest option when traveling from UK, which I do a couple of times a year from a gliding site not in the system?
