Flight Following

System and Message Overviews

Document Version: 5.10

Date: October 2, 2019

Document Revision History

The following revision history table reflects all substantive changes to this document since the previous release.

Table Of Contents

1  Introduction

This document defines the interfaces which govern the interchange of data between a Flight Following system and other systems within an Airline Operation Center (AOC).  Each AOC interface is represented by a message described in an associated XSD (XML Schema Definition). The XSD defines and enforces the required, optional, and conditional data that can be included in a message.

Flight Following systems provide a real-time graphical tool for flight tracking, usually with geopolitical and current weather map overlays.  Information displayed includes aircraft location, status, and weather.

1.1  Audience

The intended audience for this document includes existing and potential Jeppesen customers, integration partners, and personnel with roles associated with application architecture, application development, system testing, implementation, and application support within Flight Following.

1.2  Scope

This document discusses the Flight Following messages currently supported by the Jeppesen Solution Integrator. Each message description includes the following:

• Overview for common message uses within an AOC
• Message Version Summary listing all available versions of each message
• Links to the message specifications including direct links to XSD documentation, where you can explore the XSD hierarchy and interface specifications in a navigable HTML format
• Links to the XSD source code
• Links to sample XML messages for each AOC message

Other data interfaces or formats not included in this document will be considered custom and not supported.

1.3  XML Schema/XSD

The XML schema for this ICD is published in the following file: FlightFollowing.XSD

1.4 Key Concepts

1.4.1 Flight Following: Stand-alone Versus Integrated Application

Stand-alone Flight Following systems collect and process aircraft-positioning data and then publish that information to other AOC systems. Many airlines are moving towards more data-driven integrated systems. The Flight Following system could serve as the collection point for all aircraft position data and then expose that data to other AOC systems through services. For example, the Flight Following system collects aircraft position data on Flight 1234. Rather than the producing a graphical representation of the data and then passing the maps to another system (for example, the Dispatch system), the Dispatch system can simply access the Flight Following data and then use its own graphical tools to interpret the data.
The message FF002 Flight Information provides other AOC systems access to flight following data.

2  Message Summary

Table 2-1 lists the messages that can be sent or handled by the application. The messages originated by this application (messages that begin with “FF”) are further discussed in Section 3 AOC Interface Messages.

Table 2-1 Message Summary

3 AOC Interface Messages

The following messages are processed by the Flight Following system.

3.1 FF001 - InFlight Reroute

3.1.1  Message Overview

This message is used to publish in-flight reroute information. Reroute is defined as any deviation from the original flight plan that occurs after takeoff—for example, new waypoints or new airports resulting from weather hazards, airport closures, or congestion. This message is typically sent to the Dispatch system, which uses the information to calculate and communicate all necessary diversions and delays. 

The in-flight reroute message identifies the flight and considers such items as payload, fuel and location, which are essential data when considering an alternate route.

The following drawing illustrates a typical situation using the InFlight Reroute message.

Figure 1. Example: InFlight Reroute to avoid bad weather.

3.1.2  Message System Flow

This message interacts with the systems as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. FF001 message system flow

3.1.3   Message Details

The following table provides details on the message version and includes links to the message’s technical specification.

3.2 FF002 - Flight Information

3.2.1 Message Overview

Systems within the AOC can request flight position data that has been gathered and processed by the Flight Following system.  For example, a dispatcher sees that there is bad weather within the flight’s planned path. Through his Dispatch system, he requests the current aircraft position in order to determine if a re-route is appropriate.

AOC systems can request flight information for a specific flight or a range of flights according to filter criteria included in the message. Possible filtered searches include:

• Flight Information – include data on any flights with a specific call sign, flight key, poa or pod.
• Diverted – filter information to return only flight information for diverted flights or flights that have not been diverted.
• Area – include data on any flights within a geographic region based on latitude and longitude points.
• Late or Early – include data for flights that are running late or early based on their position relative to the original flight plan.
• Flight Status – include data for flights based on current status as in-flight, arrived, or planned.

The filtered flight information is returned to the requesting system at the requested level of detail. For example, the dispatcher can request a basic report that includes basic data such as callsign, position, time, course, and lat, long, or he can request an extended, advanced, or full report to include additional detailed flight information. Refer to Table 3‑6 for details on limiting information details using the requestClass field.

The following process illustrates a typical use of the FF002 – Flight Information usage.

Figure 3. Sample flight information request / response process.

3.2.2  Message System Flow

This message interacts with the systems as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. FF002 message system flow

3.2.3  Message Details

The following table provides details on the message and includes links to the message’s technical specification.

3.3 FF003 - Flight Tracking Data Feed

3.3.1 Message Overview

This is a Publish message used to carry AMR ASDI data feed to adapter, transformed then to FF003 to Dispatch Services.

3.3.2  Message System Flow

This message interacts with the systems as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. FF003 message system flow

3.3.3  Message Details

The following table provides details on the message and includes links to the message’s technical specification.

3.4 FF004 - Recently Cleared Route

3.4.1 Message Overview

This message is used to provide details on recently cleared routes for specific scenarios (such as a specific Point of Departure (PoD) and Point of Arrival (PoA), etc.)

3.4.2  Message System Flow

This message interacts with the systems as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. FF004 message system flow

3.4.3  Message Details

The following table provides details on the message and includes links to the message's technical specification.