Frequentis AG announces the availability of its smartFPLconverter, a flight plan and ATS message converter for those ANSPs who are not in a position to convert their Flight Data Processing Systems (FDPS) and/or client terminals to the new 2012 flight plan format due for adoption in November of this year. The changes are recommended by ICAO in Amendment 1 of ICAO Document 4444. 

John Fort, Frequentis Product Manager, commented that there are many impediments to adopting the new standard. “Time is very short, the standards are still evolving, many regional variations and exceptions have been proposed, and many ANSPs are questioning the return on investment for this amendment”. 

smartFPLconverter allows an ANSP to defer local adoption of the new procedures, avoiding the potentially large cost of updating their Flight Data Processing Systems and other FPL handling systems. Local systems and personnel operate as before, while correspondent systems see ATS messages conforming to the new standards.

For more details please have a look at our press release.