Released 23 October, effective March 2024

Hot off the press!

The new NAT DOC 007 has been released today ready for you to injest it, digest it and prepare for its insertion into the Ops World in March 2024.

Read all about it RIGHT HERE (find it on the ICAO website).

It’s a big one

It’s a whopper with some BIG changes piled inside of it so if you want some help getting to grips with some of them here’s a summary we made earlier.

And here is a mini summary based off that bigger summary you can get to by following the link above:

• No more oceanic clearances. See below.
• Changes to loss of comms procedures. Simplified to mean “loss of two way comms”, where ‘two way comms’ can be by any means you have onboard (save yelling out the window).
• OWAFS is out. Well, it isn’t out out, but because of the way the clearances (or lack of) work, reference to ops without a fixed speed is a bit redundant. All aircraft will basically be at ECON speed.
• Changes after the OEP. You will be able to request changes to level, speed and route.
• NOTA, BOTA and SOTA have changed. It used to be FL060 to FL600, now it is FL055 to UNLIMITED.
• Tango 290 and Tango 9 are no longer Tangos. They are just 290 and 9 now.
• CTAs are OCAS, OACC is just OAC

That’s not all!

One of the big changes is the removal of the requirement to get an Oceanic Clearance. So to go with the new Nat Doc there is also a new bulletin: 2023_001 NAT Oceanic Clearance Removal.

This contains all the info on the new process for not getting a clearance which you will need…

Don’t get too excited though. With the removal of one major procedure comes a whole new procedure to get to grips with. In this case, the process of sending an RCL (which looks very similar to a clearance request). The main difference being you are effectively telling ATC what you have filed to fly and then they are either just agreeing with it or will tell you what they need you to change about it.

It also doesn’t remove the requirement for you to be very careful about flying the right route and avoiding GNEs.