How do airline pilots know the route they need to follow on a flight?
In: Engineering
Most countries have similar but my experience is mostly with the United States system.
Basically for the pilots at an airline it’s Departure paperwork from dispatch and they are just confirming it makes sense and that they have what they need to accomplish the flight for conditions. In commercial aviation the pilots operate the equipment and are responsible and sometimes have to make decisions without dispatch but most of what they do outside of an emergency is directed by ATC or dispatch department.
Dispatch at an airline has people that are certified in this and use various resources and parameters to figure out what route to fly based on weather (to include wind, as-well as severe weather like thunderstorms turbulence and volcanic activity), airspace closures, airport closures. There are routes based on ground based navigational aides and/or GPS waypoints that also work well for routing as this makes things easier for ATC to figure out later and in the event of communication loss it gives a very predictable routing. They also usually have experience in sending these flights multiple times a day on these routes so they know what routing works and doesn’t even if the flight crew isn’t as experienced with it but usually they are also or at least one of the pilots. Another thing dispatch looks at is fuel burn and can change things off that. Most people don’t know this but most airliners are not using full power on takeoff or climb it’s usually a lower power setting. This is also on the paperwork what to set the flight management system to. Flights can also usually be reached different ways if changes need to be made and pilots can usually get a hold of dispatch if they think something should change even enroute.
On the flying side ATC sees where you coming from and where you are going and your planned route and as things change can often minorly adjust routing to shave off some time if able. As weather changes though sometimes they add time vs take it away to make sure they don’t get overwhelmed with traffic into a place all at once. Larger airports have people that work in what’s called a “center” which is an area that controls a large section of airspace like multiple states big. They have controllers that actual work traffic management and speed up slow down planes so they don’t inundate airports and have lots of holding to get in.
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