A flight plan needs to be closed upon arrival using an arrival message. A tower will do that for you and sometimes the AFIS at an untowered airport or even ATC/FIS in the air. In all other cases, you have to do it yourself, typically by phoning the local AIS which means you need to know the phone number.
There is another option: the pilot can send the ARR (arrival) message himself through the means of AFTN. There are flight plan apps that have this feature. It has been under discussion wether we should add this feature to autorouter. After arrival, the pilot would open the site and click on “Send arrival message” which would then issue the relevant message to all involved parties.
I have always been under the impression that this should not be possible, an official body (TWR, AFIS, AIS) should do it based on confirmation. In the same way that it is not possible for a crew to issue the RDY message (ready for departure to leave before CTOT/EOBT) but only TWR can do it. Obviously I can see the value of it, I’d much rather use my phone and autorouter than phoning up SIA when I land somewhere in France. Taking this concept further, the phone could even sense arrival and suggest to close the plan.
How do you feel about it? Does anybody know of any regulatory aspects there? It’s easy to implement this feature but so far I’m a bit reluctant…
Maybe it could even be an automatic feature. If the plane is on the ground at the destination and slower than 35 knots the message should go out and you should get a confirmation … Possible?
But detect and confirm would be nice too!.
I never forget the call for IFR pickup … but i did forget to close the FPL once or twice.
I think it would be a brilliant feature.
Sensing the GS and making the suggestion would imply that the phone needs to be aware of the flight somehow… yet the router is just a website which the phone has merely visited.
How about doing it via SMS?
I would like to have such a feature. I would prefer to have a manual confirmation though, not automatic closing because even after a bad crash you will be under 35 knots and on the ground but you would appreciate if somebody is looking for you.
It would be a very nice feature, but I would not want any kind of automation for the reason Vladimir mentions.
The main problem that I see is that you have to know where to send the ARR message. Generally, if there is an open ATS unit at the destination airport, they are responsible for alerting so they should get the ARR message; if not, then the ACC/FIC is responsible. But I know it doesn’t work like this in all countries.
Also, there is the question of subadressing. The AIP generally tells you how to address flight plan messages, but not ARR messages. You wouldn’t want overdue action to be initiated because the ARR message was held up for more than 30 minutes because it was sent to the wrong operator.
