Introduction
For various operational and safety reasons, a user may wish to avoid certain airspace when planning and conducting a flight. With our recently enhanced Avoid feature, there are now 3 separate ways of doing this, allowing the user a high level of control and flexibility.
These 3 methods are:
Avoid a single FIR e.g. HLLL;
Avoid a group of related FIRs e.g. LFxx;
Avoid a country's land area e.g. MLI (Mali);
Take a closer look in the examples below.
How it Works
To avoid a country or a FIR boundary, follow these simple steps:
Create a new IFR flight plan, select an aircraft, ADEP, ADES, date and flying rules (make sure these are IFR, because there will be no avoid option for a VFR flight).
Click on the Autoroute Settings to see the available options.
Now specify what should be avoided - a country or an FIR boundary.
The Avoid field, where a country or an FIR code can be specified to be avoided when preparing a flight.
Click AutoRoute and the system will start calculating the route taking into account all of your settings.
What codes can be used?
Please, check our FIR & ISO-3 code guide, where you will find out what codes can be used to avoid overflying countries, as opposed to avoiding FIRs.
A 2-letter code
A 2-letter code will help you to avoid not only one FIR boundary but all FIRs that include these letters. In the example below two FIRs are omitted - LFFF and LFEE. It's very useful when you need to avoid a country due to an ATC strike, for instance.
A route from Bristol EGGD to Milano LIML avoiding all LF FIR boundaries due to an ATC French strike.
A 4-letter code
For a NOTAM or safety concern relating to an FIR, the 4 letter FIR code may be used. Example: Libya FIR - HLLL. The example below shows a route from LXGB Gibraltar to HESN Aswan, avoiding the Tripoli FIR.
A route from LXGB Gibraltar to HESN Arwan, avoiding HLLL Tripoli FIR.
A 3-letter code
A 3-letter code or ISO-3 code designates a country with its political borders and 12NM 'territorial waters'.
A route from Gibraltar LXGB to Accra DGAA avoiding Mali (ISO-3 code is MLI)
Avoid permanently or just once
1. You can set up the autorouter to avoid some countries permanently.
To do this you need to specify the country or FIR code in the Account settings.
Go to MORE - ACCOUNT & SETTINGS - Autorouting and insert a 2-, 3-, 4-letter code of a country or an FIR boundary you would like to avoid permanently while planning.
When preparing your route, the Autoroute will automatically avoid the selected country (-ies) and FIRs.
2. The autorouter can be set up to avoid a country just once.
To do this you will not need to change the country code in the Account Autorouting Section, you will need to specify the country right on the Step 1 when preparing a flight.
Write 2-, 3-, 4-letter code(-s) of the country(-ies) or FIRs that should be avoided and press the Autoroute button.
If you have any questions, please, contact our Support Team at support@rocketroute.com.