5
Flight Planning Continued…
At present the route may not make much sense. A route is composed of 4
components, these are:
Departure airport
Airways
Waypoints
Arrival airport
For the flight today the departure airport is Paris Charles de Gaulle (LFPG) and
the arrival airport is Marseille Provence Airport (LFML). There are several
waypoints between the airports such as LATRA or LEGRA.
A waypoint is used to assist in navigating the sky. In order to get between
different waypoints an airway is used, such as UM133. An airway contains several
waypoints to within itself which get you from waypoint A to waypoint B. Airways
also simplify the programming of the FMC, as pilots do not have to enter every
waypoint along the route.
As part of the flight planning process we have to consider diversionary airports
in case of an emergency, the weather or the destination airport being closed.
There are 4 diversionary airports for the flight today, they are;
LFMI
LFTW
LFMT
LFMN
The flight today will not feature any failures or circumstances which require the
use of diversionary airports.