North Atlantic Tracks
The flight routes for scheduled flights across the Atlantic are defined by the responsible radio stations Shanwick and Gander as North Atlantic Tracks . These routes ensure that aircraft can fly over the area without permanent radar guidance from the ground.
functionality
New routes adapted to the weather are issued to the airlines every day. These tracks include a starting point, several coordinates on the flight en route and an end point. Within this track, operations may only be carried out in a certain altitude and direction (east or west) so that the machines can safely cross the Atlantic without radar guidance. The start and end point, called gate , are navigation points within the airway systems of Europe and North America. As soon as an aircraft enters the overflight area of the Atlantic, it must report to the responsible headquarters via HF radio (Shanwick Oceanic for the airspace east of 30 ° west longitude, Gander for the area west of it) and inquire about the Atlantic crossing. On the flight, the machines are required to report at the previously determined route points.
This reporting obligation means that the pilots either have to report when they have passed a coordinate on their way or when more than 40 minutes have passed since the last report (position report). These position reports must contain at least the last coordinate overflown with the corresponding time in UTC , the next coordinate with the expected time of the overflight, the altitude at which the aircraft is flying ( flight level ) and the speed in Mach .