Notam System Reform: Better Late Than Never?

Monday, February 27, 2023 at 02:25 PM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The FAA experienced a major NOTAM system outage and subsequent ground stop, leading the U.S. House to pass the NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023, establishing a task force to enhance NOTAM presentation, accuracy, and system resilience.
The FAA released a new, consolidated Aviation Weather Handbook (FAA-H-8083-28), streamlining access to weather guidance by combining information from six previous advisory circulars.
The FAA clarified approach categories via InFO 23001, stating that an aircraft's certificated approach category is permanent and does not change based on actual landing weight.

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The aftereffects of the FAA’s January 11, 2023, Notam system outage continue to ripple through the industry. If you’re just joining us, you should know the FAA was forced to issue a ground-stop in U.S. airspace after Notams (notices to air missions) became unavailable during a glitchy system upgrade.

According to online sister publication AVweb.com, the system “got glitchy” during the afternoon of January 10. Troubleshooting revealed a “single corrupted file” on both the main and backup systems. Technicians were doing a reboot of the Notam system—which was taking longer than anticipated—when the decision was made to issue a ground stop early on the 11th. As AVweb noted, the ground stop “didn’t last long but the effect was far-reaching.”