Did you know that outside the EUROCONTROL zone there are thousands of IFR airports worldwide that do not have published SID/STARs? It is the job of our routing engines therefore to connect to these airports directly, building flyable and fileable routes for our users, across the world. But how do we do that? How can we make our process transparent, easy to understand, and configurable based on local knowledge? Here’s how:
- Click on an airport to show the airport popup.
- Click ‘Show SIDs’ (Standard Instrument Departure) or ‘Show STARs’ (Standard Terminal Arrivals).
- Where the airport has no published SIDs or STARs, a ‘DCT’ or direct connection will be displayed.
KHHW airport with 12 possible DCT connections to the enroute airway structure.
Using KHHW Stan Stamper Municipal Airport as an example, when departing from this airport our engine will consider 12 possible DCT connections to the enroute airway structure.
The advantage of opening our ‘connection logic’ to our users in a visual way is that we may then update and refine, based on our user’s genuine experience of flying to these types of airports. Via a simple email to our Support team we can easily manipulate these connections to ensure that we are providing routes that are both flyable, and locally acceptable by Air Traffic Control.
We certainly have not flown to every airport in the world, but our users probably have. We want to have routes for our users that reflect the local knowledge of pilots and dispatchers, that then in turn helps others flying to that destination for the first time.
Try it out! Here’s a question: are we properly connected to the airports you use most often? If not, please tell us so we can respond and improve our system for you. We’re in this together.
P.S., globally, we have over 100,000 'synthetic' airport connections ready to be used and improved.
Further Support
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