A change has happened. Here’s what it means.

A change of name

End of post.

OK, I can give a little more info.

Effective September 7 2023 the airspace formerly known as the West Atlantic Route System (WATRS) will be known as West Atlantic (WAT).

This relates to what you might think of as the New York – West Oceanic CTA, the San Juan CTA and the Atlantic portion of the Miami Oceanic CTA. The area itself (its boundaries) have not changed at all.

A new LOA

You need to amend various things, including your LOA B050. Good news is you have 24 months to get this sorted.

B050 is of course the authorisation for En Route Operations, Limitations and Provisions (for oceanic and remote continental).

All the following operators need to have this amended to reflect the new name:

• Part 91 and subpart K (part 91K)
• Part121 and 125 (including part 125 Letter of Deviation Authority (LODA) holders)
• Part 135

You might want to amend manuals and make sure your crew know about the name change too, just so they don’t get confused.

Watch out for…

Other changes too.

• Once they’ve sorted some policy bits out, B045 will be changing as well. This is the ‘Extended Overwater Operations Using a Single Long-Range Communication System’ LOA.
• There is a new notice N8900.672 which defines new Boundaries for Areas of Magnetic Unreliability and South Polar Area of Operation
  • You need to make sure your re-issued LOA B050 references the new areas
    • The South Polar area starts at S60° (instead of S67°)
  • You might need to check your B040 because the magnetic unreliability area was not really defined before
    • The Northern AMU is the area within 1,000 NM of the Northern Magnetic Pole, (except for airspace over Alaska and its territorial waters). In addition, the FAA designates Canadian NDA as part of the Northern AMU.
    • The Southern AMU is the area within 1,000 NM of the Southern Magnetic Pole.

Here’s the official info

• Notice 8900.673 Changes to WATRS name
• Notice 8900.672 Changes to boundary for magnetic unreliability and South Polar area of ops
• The FAA WAT Guide (for US operators, but helpful for all)
• An NBAA post on it because they know what they’re talking about
• The FAA page for chart downloads (look under planning for the WAT route chart)