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If you have any questions please feel free to contact Spectrum Engineering Services by sending an email to 9-AJW-Spectrum-Engineering-Communications@faa.gov.
Your regional frequency management office plays an important role in supporting the goal of air safety within our Nation's airspace. We encourage you to contact either them or Spectrum Engineering, for any radio frequency requirements.
In this section you will find contact information for each frequency management office and FAA centers and regions.
Aeronautical Information Services is the FAAs' civil aviation authority providing the foundations for flight in the national airspace system.
You are encouraged to bring charting errors to our attention. Every FAA Aeronautical product contains contact information and brief instructions for reporting charting errors. You may contact us by mail, telephone, and web portal:
FAA, Aeronautical Information Services
1305 East-West Highway
SSMC4, Suite 4531
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3281
Telephone: 800-638-8972 (toll free, U.S. only)
Aeronautical Inquiries or Website Issues
The ATO is a performance-based organization, and Management Services makes sure that performance stays on track. As the organization manages the air traffic of today while making the improvements and advancements necessary to take on the air traffic of tomorrow, Management Services provides a framework for executing and integrating the ATO's plans, programs, and activities.
Management Services oversees a number of ATO offices, including: Budget Analysis & Formulation; Business Services; Customer Experience; Employee Development; Field Technical Requirements & Forecasting; HQ Administrative Services; Materiel Management & Procurement; Organizational Effectiveness; Policy Oversight; Strategic Planning; Technical Labor.
Phone: (202) 267-5724
This section provides guidance on information required by FAA for automatic assignment of RNAV Standard Instrument Departures (SID), RNAV Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STAR) and/or RNAV Point-to-Point (PTP). There are currently two (2) types of RNAV capability used in the domestic U.S.:
Users must file in accordance with (IAW) FAA Form 7233-4(PDF) for automatic assignment of RNAVSIDs, STARs and/or PTP in U.S. domestic airspace and include additional information per the below guidance:
The "D", "E" and "A" characters may appear in any order following "NAV/RNV"
Additional items required by other automation systems may be filed after NAV/, in any order:
If the Item 18 entries following "NAV/" do not follow the above instructions, the flight plan will be accepted by ERAS but you will not be automatically assigned RNAV. Common errors include:
The ATO's Safety & Technical Training service unit influences and addresses risk in the NAS through:
Our safety functions include:
We accomplish this through the combined efforts of our four directorates (Safety, Technical Training, Policy & Performance, and Strategic Outreach), and through strong stakeholder partnerships.
When the number of flights increases to a level that creates regular and significant flight delays, and infrastructure improvements to manage the capacity are not feasible in the near future, the airport may be declared a Level 3 airport by the FAA.
In the U.S., the Level 3 airports are John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), LaGuardia Airport (LGA), and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).
At DCA, slot controls that are equivalent to Level 3, are in place pursuant to the High Density Rule (14 CFR part 93 subparts K & S) to govern operations daily, from 6:00 am to 11:59 pm. During slot-controlled hours, regularly scheduled operations are limited to 48 per hour by regulation. Some additional operations are permitted by exemption on a limited basis pursuant to 49 U.S.C. §§ 41714 and 41718.
At JFK and LGA, Level 3 slot controls are in place pursuant to FAA Order.
The Slot Administration Office within the Air Traffic Organization's System Operations Services at the FAA is the coordinator for runway slots at the U.S. designated Level 3 airports.
Carriers or other interested parties may contact the Slot Administration Office at the FAA for more information about operations slot rules at slot-controlled airports: 7-awa-slotadmin@faa.gov.
DCA and LGA are Level 3 airports with primarily domestic or pre-cleared international operations. Allocations are on a continuing basis based on historic slots, a two-month minimum usage requirement, and other provisions in the FAA order and rules.
The U.S. Level 3 airport that generally follows the IATA flight scheduling process, issued in the WSG is JFK. Unlike the other Level 3 airports, JFK has a large percentage of international flights.
Flight schedules under the WSG process are generally divided into two seasons per year—Winter and Summer. Consequently, the slot allocation process occurs twice annually at JFK.
The WSG also includes a set of steps followed to allocate slots for a given season. Currently, this applies in the U.S. only to JFK. The first step generally begins April (for the following Winter season) and September (for the next Summer season):
Step 1: Slot Historic List (SHL) Deadline
This is the first step in the slot allocation process for the season. The SHL Deadline is the date by which the FAA, as coordinator, must provide carriers of the details about the status of historic slots.
Step 2: Agreed Historics Deadline
The Agreed Historics Deadline is the last date for carriers to raise any objections to the FAA's assessment of the historic slots.
Step 3: Initial Submission Deadline
The Initial Submission Deadline is the last date when carriers can submit plans for flight operations in the designated season to receive priority consideration or to claim historic slots. Schedule requests after the Initial Submission Deadline are considered with lower priority. The FAA typically uses the same Initial Submission Deadline as the IATA Slot Conference and announces the seasonal deadline in the Federal Register. The deadlines are typically in May and October.
Step 4: IATA Appointments Calendar (AppCal) opened to Coordinators
AppCal is a calendar application used for the worldwide slot conference. At this step in the process, the FAA has the opportunity to set availability for meetings during the conference or to initiate meetings with carriers or others during the slot conference.
Step 5: SAL (Slot Allocation Listing) Deadline
The SAL Deadline is the date by which the FAA releases the first draft of the slot allocations for the coming season.
Step 6: "AppCal" Open to airlines
At this point, access to the AppCal calendar application is made available to carriers so that they can plan meetings with the FAA and slot coordinators from airports around the world to discuss their slot allocations, schedule plans, or other issues for the coming season.
Step 7: IATA Slot Conference
The Slot conference is held twice yearly, once for each of the scheduling seasons. The conference is convened to allocate slots at Level 3 airports and to discuss schedules and potential schedule adjustments at Level 2 airports. The coordinators and schedule facilitators (the FAA in the U.S. for runway operations) meet individually with carriers to discuss that operator's schedule for the coming season.
Step 8: Slot Return Deadline
The slot return deadline is the date by which carriers must return slots they do not intend to operate during the forthcoming season.
Step 9: Historics Baseline Date
The Historics Baseline Date is the date at which the new slot allocations become effective. This is also the start date used to calculate the usage requirement for allocated slots under the WSG process.
If delays can be managed with some guidance on the number and timing of flights through schedule facilitation, then an airport may be designated Level 2 by the FAA based primarily on performance metrics and runway capacity. In the U.S., the FAA Slot Administration Office within the Air Traffic Organization facilitates runway schedules at Level 2 airports designated by the FAA.
In the U.S., the Level 2 airports include Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) (Change of Newark Liberty International Airport Designation, 81 FR 19861 (Oct. 20, 2016)) and San Francisco International Airport (SFO). An airport operator may separately declare an airport as Level 2 based on airport passenger terminal facility or other constraints.
Currently, the four FAA Level 2 airports have a separate process for flights operating at specific airport facilities designated and managed by the local airport operator. In these cases, carriers provide schedules to the FAA and the local airport schedule facilitators. The carrier is responsible for ensuring matching runway and terminal approvals. Additionally, some international passenger terminals are Level 2 at non-FAA Level 2 designated airports and managed at the local airport level. Those airports are currently Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA).
The roles of the facilitator at a Level 2 airport and the coordinator in a Level 3 airport as outlined in the WSG are administratively similar, but both are governed by different principles for managing scheduling processes. Schedule facilitation at Level 2 airports is designed to engender collaboration and gain mutual agreement between the parties regarding schedules and potential adjustments to stay within the performance goals and capacity limits of the airport, and to mitigate delays and congestion that would result in the need for Level 3 slot controls.
Although voluntary, carriers are expected to seek and obtain schedule approval in the Level 2 process, as schedule facilitation is used to prevent an escalation in congestion necessitating a possible Level 3 designation. If a carrier chooses to operate a flight without approval from the FAA and the airport subsequently transitions into Level 3 status, the carrier would not receive priority for any flights not approved by the facilitator when the Level 3 historic baseline is established. This could ultimately result in the carrier being unable to continue similar service.
The FAA tracks flight operations closely at Level 2 airports in the U.S., monitoring for time periods that may be susceptible to systemic volume-related delays as a result of congestion.
The process for schedule facilitation of Level 2 airports follows many of the same steps as Level 3 airports.
Instead of submitting historic slot data, each flight operator submits a proposed schedule for the "Initial Submission Deadline," which is then analyzed, along with all of the submissions, for the potential to create delays.
The "SAL Deadline" is when the FAA returns the schedules with any proposed changes or comments.
Carriers have the opportunity to meet directly with the FAA at the IATA slot conference to discuss potential schedule changes, just as carriers at Level 3 airports do.
The "Slot Return Deadline" for Level 2 is the opportunity for the carriers to remove any potential flights they do not intend to operate in the coming season.
Carriers may contact the FAA Slot Administration Office for more information about runway review of operations at schedule-facilitated airports: Slot Administration