France is slowly rolling out a new ATC system called 4-Flight, and from Jan 9 to Feb 14 there’s a live trial happening which is going to cause delays at all four airports in the Paris area: LFPB/Le Bourget, LFPG/De Gaulle, LFPO/Orly and LFOB/Beauvais.
During this period, the operational capacity for the entire airspace will be reduced by 30%. The real-world result of all this is that LFPG and LFPO will have fewer slots available, and LFPB and LFOB will require slots (normally they don’t).
For GA/BA flights headed to any of these airports, you should request slots via your handling agent, and you need to make sure you add the slot ID number to your flight plan, in a very specific format:
RMK/ASL directly followed by the 14-character authorization number, the first 4 of which are the ICAO code for the aerodrome for which the slot has been issued : RMK/ASL (14 CHARACTER AIRPORT SLOT ID). Example : RMK/ASLLFPBA123456789 (arrival) or RMK/ASLLFPBD123456789 (departure) for Paris-Le Bourget.
There may also be some impact to overflights through the Paris ACC – especially at weekends when it’s busy with ski flights heading south to the Alps.
Check AIC 19/23 for more info.
More on the topic:
- More: France Wants Your Cash
- More: New Datalink Mandate in France
- More: The Curious Case of the Bonus French ATC Strike
- More: Movie Stars and Racing Cars: Special Flight Ops in Southern France
- More: Operation Orion: French Airspace Closures
More reading:
- Latest: 2024 Flight Ops Changes: The Big Ones
- Latest: High levels of Pilot Error with NAT RCL: New Briefing and Checklist
- Latest: US FAA Improves Flight Tracking Privacy
- Safe Airspace: Risk Database
- Weekly Ops Bulletin: Subscribe
- Membership plans: Why join OPSGROUP?