NOTAMs are notices to airmen and contain information that pilots have to be aware of before conducting a flight. Given the large number of NOTAMs of which only very few are actually relevant to a flight, autorouter attempts to help the pilot identifying what is important.

All NOTAM data provided by autorouter is provided AS-IS without any warranties for correctness or completeness. Having said that, the NOTAMs are imported from Eurocontrol EAD which is the official source of NOTAM data in Europe. Other services using e.g. FAA sources in the US would not carry all applicable NOTAMs as certain NOTAMs are not marked for international dissemination and would not be transmitted outside Europe. The NOTAM database of autorouter is updated in real time.

Briefing Pack

Each briefing pack contains — unless deselected — a complete NOTAM briefing. NOTAMs are selected based on departure, destination and alternate aerodromes and within a corridor of the route. For departure, destination and alternates, a corridor of 50NM is used where as for the route, a corridor of 30NM is applied.

For each NOTAM, the affected area is calculated (either exactly from the NOTAM description, called item E or the radius and the coordinate given — those appear as circles). Depending on the type of NOTAM, a color is used as you can see from the legend. NOTAMs that directly affect the flight (i.e. are valid for the route) have a solid border while NOTAMs that do not directly affect the flight have a dashed border. NOTAMs on the route can have dashed lines as they can be not applicable for other reasons such as flight rules — a VFR NOTAM on an IFR flight would not apply.

In the briefing pack, the NOTAMs in the overview graphic are linked to the full text. You can click on the NOTAM identifier which is either an airport code or the NOTAM ID for FIR (flight information region) NOTAMs.

 

This is a complete display of a NOTAM with all its information pieces in a human readable condensed format. By clicking on the NOTAM identifier on the right side, you can view it on the autorouter website in full ICAO format. The arrow next to each NOTAM lets you jump back to the overview image for quick navigation.

Next to each NOTAM you find a “suppress” link which adds the NOTAM to the list of suppressed NOTAMs and hides it from all subsequent briefing packs. See the section on NOTAM suppression for more information.

NOTAMs are ordered by area (departure, destination, alternate first and then FIRs) and within the area by type of NOTAM. Non applicable NOTAMs are shown in an appendix to the briefing pack and identified by dashed lines in the overview image.

Updated Briefing Packs

Subsequent updates to briefing packs (either requested by the user via the download feature on the web interface or sent out at a configured time before departure on a flight plan) highlight all changes. You can see a reference to changes and the previous briefing pack below the graphical overview.

This allows you to have a quick glance at what has changed without going through all the information again.

Suppressing NOTAMs

One of the big difficulties of pilots is the large number of NOTAMs issued and the very few relevant piece of information can be easily overlooked. Therefore autorouter contains a feature to suppress NOTAMs, i.e. hide them from all future briefing packs. In the briefing pack, you can can click on the “suppress” link next to each NOTAM which will open a web page (no login required) and add the NOTAM to your suppression list.

In the NOTAM Briefing section of autorouter, you can find a list of all currently suppressed NOTAMs and choose to restore them. You can also add additional NOTAMs there by performing a NOTAM query and then selecting and clicking Suppress.

Briefing packs contain a list of suppressed NOTAMs as the end (i.e. NOTAMs that would be part of the pack were they not suppressed). You can click on individual NOTAMs, NOFs (NOTAM offices, i.e. NOTAM publishing authorities, usually the countries) or all and get a lists of those NOTAMs with further details.

Subscribing to NOTAM updates

When operating at specific airfields and FIRs, pilots can have a general interest in changes to applicable NOTAMs. Therefore autorouter contains a feature to subscribe to NOTAM updates (addition, replacement, cancel) for airports and FIRs.

You can subscribe either via the NOTAM Briefing section on the autorouter site or the Telegram BOT. Notifications are performed via email and/or Telegram as configured. Subscriptions trigger based on the “item A” of the NOTAM, i.e. the airport code or FIR code it applies to. A subscription is valid until you remove it, either via web interface or Telegram BOT.