Forum,
How can a private individual or aeroclub inject a general message into AFTN?
Thanks.
AFPEX is one. You need a UK postal address to get the account. Afterwards they don’t care which IP you login from (it would be useless if they did). I have some notes here However I don’t think you can get an AFPEX account anymore for club use, unless you pay. Airfields have to pay also.
Otherwise, there are various US based companies which offer an AFTN mailbox. It’s not cheap though – of the order of similar cost to SMS. You interface to it via some web front end or maybe email (like email2fax/fax2email). I have no experience of this but know of some applications. @Achimha might know more.
IFR flight plans in Europe can be filed via Eurocontrol and don’t need an AFTN interface. However IIRC the AFTN mailbox is required as a backup. Also AFTN is required for VFR flight plans.
Thank you Peter.
Hi Niner_Mike,
Just out of curiosity, what would you use it for?
I am prepping a flight to/from Dakar. For overflight and/or landing permission I can either make use of third party service companies or figure it out myself. The AIPs call for sending requests via fax or AFTN … Hence the question…
This is a bit more involved them.
I would use fax. Get yourself an email2fax and fax2email service. I use Interfax; there are others. Buy yourself a UK geographical incoming fax number; for example I have a Brighton one of 01273 xxxxxx. Using one of the free ones (0870 etc) is not good because often foreign senders are not able to send to premium rate numbers!
Use of the AFTN would appear possible for PPR/PNR but in reality is doesn’t work well. I had tried it extensively in the early days of AFPEX. I don’t know why but probably it was because the recipient simply could not believe the message was from a private pilot since only airports have AFTN access 
Also many of the people who handle AFTN messages deal mostly with flight plans etc in a defined format and have zero English competence so sending them a free text message is a waste of time anyway.
What you will find nowadays is that your fax will often result in an email response which then enables easy communication afterwards. So, obviously include your email address in the fax.
Speaking of overflight/landing permissions, there are places that don’t accept requests by fax, either, only by AFTN or SITA. Don’t know the current situation, but this was the case with Russia several years ago.
By the way, Peter, does AFPEX cancel your account if you don’t use it for too long?
I have not used mine for several years but have probably logged in every 6 months or so, and it is still active now.
By the way, Peter, does AFPEX cancel your account if you don’t use it for too long?
It used too be the case (don’t know if it still is) that if you didn’t log in for 6 months then your account would be locked. You then needed to give them a call to unlock. But the account was not deleted nor cancelled; just locked, and a simple call would unlock it.
They did a purge of long dormant accounts a few years ago, where the account was actually deleted, but I didn’t think that’s routinely done.
Hi Niner_Mike,
PM sent.
