{"id":23347,"date":"2023-09-19T11:06:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T15:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=23347"},"modified":"2023-09-20T07:26:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T11:26:41","slug":"north-atlantic-update-wat-happened-to-watrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/north-atlantic-update-wat-happened-to-watrs\/","title":{"rendered":"North Atlantic Update: WAT Happened To WATRS?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6>Key Points<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>The US FAA has officially renamed <strong>WATRS<\/strong> airspace in the West Atlantic, to simply <strong>WAT<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Part 91K, 121, 125 and 135 operators will all be affected by the change. <strong>Existing B050 authorizations will be re-issued<\/strong> within 24 months.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you\u2019re not familiar with WATRS, it is a large chunk of airspace off the US East Coast comprised of fixed routes that provide huge volumes of oceanic traffic to and from the NAT HLA with lateral separation. From 7 Sep 2023, it&#8217;s been renamed <strong>WAT.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>What was wrong with the old name?<\/h4>\n<p>The FAA dig into this in their<a href=\"https:\/\/www.faa.gov\/documentLibrary\/media\/Notice\/N_8900.673.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> recent notice<\/a>. Essentially back in 2020, New York ATC asked users to stop using the term \u2018WATRS airspace\u2019 because it was causing some <strong>confusion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, some users were associating it simply with the <strong>New York West Oceanic CTA<\/strong>. When, in reality it also spans the <strong>San Juan CTA<\/strong> and the Atlantic portion of the <strong>Miami Oceanic CTA<\/strong> too.<\/p>\n<p>It is purely an issue of semantics. Now we need to call it WAT instead so that it better aligns with ICAO regions.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-23364\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM-1024x690.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"690\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM-1024x690.png 1024w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM-300x202.png 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM-768x517.png 768w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM-600x403.png 600w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM-400x269.png 400w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-2.20.17-PM.png 1378w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>Has the physical boundary changed?<\/h4>\n<p>Nope. It is a <strong>name change only<\/strong>, and the existing set up remains the same.<\/p>\n<h4>Then why do we need to know?<\/h4>\n<p>If you traverse the NAT a lot, no doubt you are quite familiar with the term WATRS. But you are unlikely to hear it anymore.<\/p>\n<p>It will be <strong>progressively replaced<\/strong> with the unfamiliar term WAT in charts, reference material and approvals. And so, a little background helps.<\/p>\n<p>A number of important FAA documents will need to be updated. The most significant is <strong>LOA B050<\/strong> which will be re-issued to all operators over the next 24 months.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LOA B045<\/strong> (Extended Overwater Operations Using a Single Long-Range Communication System) will also be revised when some extra paper-pushing gets done behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>Your company\u2019s internal manuals and guidance will also need to be changed to avoid \u2018reverse training\u2019 the older, obsolete name.<\/p>\n<h4>WAT about other NAT changes?<\/h4>\n<p>While we have you, there\u2019s been another <strong>small change<\/strong> to NAT ops to report.<\/p>\n<p>On September 18, ICAO revised the<strong>\u00a0\u2018Oceanic Errors\u2019 NAT Ops Bulletin<\/strong> &#8211; the doc which has all the advice for operators on how to avoid the most common mistakes when flying the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>These include: Gross Nav Errors, Large Height Deviations, and Longitudinal Separation busts. There&#8217;s also some advice on Flight Planning, SLOP, and some CPDLC things to watch out for.<\/p>\n<p>You can download it <a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NAT-OPS-Bulletin-2017_002-Rev6.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Looks like there are <strong>no significant changes<\/strong> in terms of content for this updated version when compared with the old one \u2013 they\u2019ve just tidied it up a bit.<\/p>\n<p>But if you operate over the North Atlantic it\u2019s still worth a read, as there\u2019s lots of\u00a0top tips on how to avoid the most common \u201cgotchas\u201d!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contingency and Weather Deviation Procedures<\/strong> were updated back in 19\u2019, and rolled out to all oceanic airspace worldwide in November 2020. We produced this chart at the time:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ops.group\/dashboard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/NAT-CONTINGENCY-2019.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>Do You Have a NAT Conundrum?<\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23355 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pirate-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pirate-1.png 920w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pirate-1-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/pirate-1-768x427.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/>Ah, NAT conundrums! We love them so much, we\u2019ve published three entire Volumes already!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/nat-conundrums-volume-i\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Volume I<\/a>\u00a0covered the following three conundrums:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>1. To SLOP, or not to SLOP?<br \/>\n2. What\u2019s the difference between the NAT Region and the NAT HLA?<br \/>\n3. Can I fly across the North Atlantic without Datalink?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b><a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/nat-conundrums-volume-ii\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Volume II<\/a>\u00a0covered these additional three:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>4. Do you need to plot on Blue Spruce Routes?<br \/>\n5. Do we still fly Weather Contingency Procedures on Blue Spruce routes?<br \/>\n6. When can we disregard an ATC clearance and follow the contingency procedure instead?<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/nat-conundrums-volume-iii\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Volume III<\/a> was solely dedicated to:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>7. GOTA airspace datalink and ADS-B requirements.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re always on the lookout for more conundrums, so please <strong>get in touch with the team<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:team@ops.group\">team@ops.group<\/a>\u00a0with any NAT related questions or queries. We\u2019ll do our best to answer them, or put you in touch with someone who can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Points The US FAA has officially renamed WATRS airspace in the West Atlantic, to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":23396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21,1467],"class_list":{"0":"post-23347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-briefings","8":"tag-nat","9":"tag-watrs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23347"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23374,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23347\/revisions\/23374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}