ENR 1.10 FLIGHT PLANNING

 
This section includes:
   
  • the general procedures concerning the submission of flight plans
  • additional provisions to be applied within the Finnish flight information region
  • flight plan related Regional Supplementary Procedures of ICAO Doc 7030 applied in Finland.

1 PROCEDURES FOR THE SUBMISSION OF A FLIGHT PLAN

REF: SERA 4001, OPS M1-1, para 2.7 and AIP, GEN 1.7

1.1 A flight plan shall be submitted prior to operating:

  1. any flight or portion thereof to be provided with air traffic control service;
  2. a flight within or into aerodrome flight information zone during its operational hours;
  3. a flight within or into ADIZ or prohibited or restricted areas;
  4. any flight across international borders, unless otherwise prescribed by the States concerned;
  5. any flight planned to operate at night, if leaving the vicinity of an aerodrome.

1.2 Time of submission

1.2.1. Flight plans shall not be submitted more than 120 hours before the estimated off-block time (EOBT) of a flight. If the flight plan is submitted earlier than 24 hours before the EOBT, insert the date of flight in item 18 preceded by DOF/. The flight plan shall be submitted no later than 60 minutes before the EOBT.
Exception: For a VFR flight operated entirely within HELSINKI FIR, the flight plan may be submitted 30 minutes before the EOBT at the latest.
Note 1: For a flight subject to air traffic flow management (ATFM), the flight plan shall be submitted no later than 3 hours before the EOBT.
Note 2: For flights subject to airspace traffic flow management measures see also para 3 below.
1.2.2. For a non-scheduled flight intended to be operated within the air defence identification zone (ADIZ, see ENR 5.2), a flight plan shall be submitted to the appropriate air navigation service provider one hour before the flight or during the flight to ATS unit one hour before entering the ADIZ.
This time restriction is, however, not applicable to:
  1. flights along the published ATS routes or
  2. flights within ENR airspace (FRA and DCT routing).
1.2.3. Permission for flights within restricted areas, see ENR 5.1.

1.3 Place of submission

1.3.1. Prior to departure
Flight plans shall be submitted to the Flight Planning Centre using an electronic flight plan form (eFPL).
1.3.2. During flight
A flight plan submitted during flight shall be submitted to the nearest ATS unit in operation or to the ACC.

1.4 Contents and form of a flight plan

ICAO flight plan (FPL) form and complete instructions for the completion of the flight plan form, both in Finnish and in English, are available on website below. Also an electronic flight plan form (eFPL) is available on website at
 
www.ais.fi
TEL +358 20 428 4800

1.5 Report of departure and arrival

  1. Report of departure:
If the flight plan has been submitted and departure takes place from the airport without ATS in operation, the pilot shall activate the flight immediately before departure by telephone to the ACC VFR Control TEL +358 3 386 5172.
Note: If the departure takes place from the controlled airspace (CTR) outside the airport, activation shall be done by telephone or radio to the ATS unit whose area of responsibility the aerodrome is located at.
  1. Report of arrival:
If the flight plan has been submitted and arrival takes place to the airport without ATS in operation, the pilot shall close the flight immediately after arrival by telephone to the ACC VFRControl TEL +358 3 386 5172.
Note: If the arrival takes place to the controlled airspace (CTR) outside the airport, report of arrival shall be done by telephone or radio to the ATS unit whose area of responsibility the aerodrome is located at.
  1. Reports of departure and arrival shall include following information:
  •  Aircraft identification
  •  Departure or arrival aerodrome
  •  Actual time of departure or arrival
Note: A report of arrival is not required after landing when the aerodrome is provided with air traffic services and it is evident from radiotelephony and light signals that landing has been observed.
Whenever an arrival report is required, failure to comply with these provisions may cause serious disruption in the air traffic services and incur great expense in carrying out unnecessary search and rescue operations.

1.6 Adherence to Airspace Utilization Rules and Availability

No flight plans shall be filed via the airspace of HELSINKI FIR deviating from the State restrictions defined within the Route Availability Document (RAD). This common European reference document contains all airspace utilisation rules and availability for HELSINKI FIR and any reference to them shall be made via:
www.nm.eurocontrol.int/RAD/index.html

1.7 Flight Plan Buffer Zones (FBZ) for restricted and danger areas and military exercise and training areas

Flight Plan Buffer Zones (FBZ) are established around AMC Manageable R, D, TRA and TSA areas for flight planning purposes. The lateral and vertical limits of zones are published in ENR 5.1 (Restricted and Danger areas) and ENR 5.2 (Temporary Reserved Areas and Temporary Segregated Areas).
Activated FBZ shall be taken into account when filing an IFR flight plan having DCT routings. FBZ is activated by AUP/UUP message.
Network Manager’s IFPS system will not accept flight plans where great circle route (DCT) between two positions enters active FBZ area within FBZ vertical limits. Flight plans can be filed up to the boundary of the active FBZ.

2 REPETITIVE FLIGHT PLAN (RPL) SYSTEM

Finland will follow Eurocontrol Network Manager's decision not to accept Repetitive flight plans anymore. This means that individual flight plans will have to be filed for each flight.
This concerns flights within IFPS Zone. The IFPS User's Manual contains a list of states and Flight Information Regions (FIR/UIR) comprising the IFPS Zone.
The situation concerning the countries outside of the IFPS Zone must be confirmed from the AIP of the country concerned.

3 SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEDURES CONCERNING FLIGHTS SUBJECT TO ATFCM MEASURES

REF: Doc 7030 EUR, para 2.2.
Note: The basic description of the ATFCM procedures within EUR Region is given in section ENR 1.9. Additional information concerning operational procedures related to the Eurocontrol NMOC (Network Manager Operations Center) is published in the ATFCM Handbook which is available at:
www.eurocontrol.int/network-operations/library
For flights subject to ATFCM measures, the following procedures apply:
  1. Flight plans shall be submitted at least 3 hours before the estimated off-block time (EOBT);
  2. Any Changes to the EOBT of more than 15 minutes shall be subject of a modification message;
  3. When a repetitive flight plan (RPL) or an individual flight plan (FPL) has been filed but it is decided, within 4 hours of EOBT, to use an alternative routing between the same aerodrome of departure and destination:
  1. a cancellation message (CNL) with priority DD shall be transmitted immediately to all addressees of the previous flight plan;
         
  2. a replacement flight plan (RFP) in the form of an FPL with indentical call sign shall be transmitted with a delay not less than 5 minutes;
        
  3. the RFP shall contain, as the first element of Item 18, the indication RFP/Qn, where RFP signifies ”Replacement Flight Plan” and “n” is ”1” for the first replacement, ”2” for the second replacement, and so on; and
       
  4. the last RFP shall be filed at least 30 minutes before EOBT.

4 SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEDURES CONCERNING THE EUR RVSM AIRSPACE

The EUR RVSM flight planning requirements for the completion of the ICAO Flight Plan Form and the Repetitive Flight Plan are contained in the ICAO EUR Regional Supplementary Procedures (Doc 7030 EUR).
Furthermore, the following requirement is in addition to the flight planning requirements contained in the ICAO EUR Regional Supplementary Procedures (Doc 7030 EUR):
In addition to military operations, operators of customs or police aircraft shall insert the letter M in Item 8 of the ICAO Flight Plan Form.