Solution Provider and Consultant to the Air Traffic Management Domain

Sophisticated converter provides two-way compatibility between the New and Present flight plan format

Belgocontrol, the Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) for Belgium has announced that following the delivery and installation of COMSOFT’s AIDA-FPL flight plan converter, it is now  optimally prepared for ICAO’s New flight plan format FPL 2012 due in November 2012.

On 15 November 2012, ICAO’s flight plan data format will change according to ICAO Doc 4444 Amendment 1 and all ANSPs must be ready for the transition. Since it will be virtually impossible that all flight plan processing systems worldwide will be ready on time, COMSOFT has developed AIDA-FPL, a flight plan converter that allows ANSPs to communicate in both Present and New formats and convert from one to the other  in both directions. The converter’s elaborate algorithms implement the ICAO-proposed conversion tables and additionally check and cross-check the elements of flight plans to ensure correct conversion results. Thus the converter guarantees full interoperability between the formats for the impending transition period with no manual intervention necessary.

Belgocontrol successfully conducted interoperability tests between the converter and EUROCONTROL’s Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU) with conversion in both directions. Dirk Vandenbergh, Project Manager for Belgocontrol commented: “We very much appreciate COMSOFT’s professionalism and support in fast-tracking the transition of our systems to the new ICAO Flight Plan 2012 and ensuring a smooth switch when the new data format is introduced.”

A large number of ANSPs worldwide uses COMSOFT’s AIDA-FPL converter, which is available either as a standalone appliance or as a software module for COMSOFT’s market-leading AMHS/AFTN node AIDA-NG.