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I was working on a programmed simulation of an FMC. I was wondering, regarding airways, if there can be more than one airway with the same name in the world.

i.e can there be more than one airway named UL602?

fsxflyer789 Productions
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2 Answers2

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No.

From ICAO SARPs Annex 11 'Air Traffic Services' Appendix 1:

3.1.3 A basic designator assigned to one route shall not be assigned to any other route.

And to clarify what is meant by designator for the ATS routes (airways): a designator is a letter followed by 1 to 3 digits (1 to 999). In your case the L602 is the designator. The preceding U (for Upper) is a supplementary letter.

RE Is UL602 still part of the L602 airway or are they two separate airways?

They are the same route (lateral path), but not necessarily have the same navaids/waypoints:

  • The lower ATS route may require an extra VOR, for example, to compensate for the low altitude line-of-sight limitation.
  • It may also have extra waypoints for joining the SIDs and STARs to the airway (on/off ramp highway analogy). This is more applicable to the example given since it's an RNAV-only ATS route (see letter L below).

Bonus: The current letters for the designators are:

  • A, B, G, R (regional non-RNAV)
  • L, M, N, P (regional RNAV)
  • H, J, V, W (non-regional non-RNAV)
  • Q, T, Y, Z (non-regional RNAV)

A regional ATS route is usually one that passes through more than 1 FIR.

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Yes.

It may not be ICAO, but there are several military aerial refueling routes with same-name civilian routes.

AR11, AR14, and AR24 are the ones I've worked with. These are aerial refueling routes in Nebraska and Wyoming. There are civilian routes with the same names in Canadian airspace.

These names confused our simulation software, so we loaded the routes as point-to-point. ERAM had no problems with discerning them, and it's unlikely that civilian flight planning software would, either.

atc_ceedee
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  • RE There are civilian routes with the same names in Canadian airspace. – can you show us on skyvector or similar? The reason I ask, ARxx is not a civilian/ICAO designator. While R is a designator, there is no A prefix; only prefixes: K, U, and S – no A. –  Mar 16 '22 at 20:19
  • Working on it... – atc_ceedee Mar 31 '22 at 12:38
  • I'm certain ARxxx is not civilian. My guess what tripped your simulation were RNAV approach waypoints in the format of AB123, not airways. –  Mar 31 '22 at 15:09
  • That could be, but I'm sure it was listed as an airway. I have to wait until I'm back in the building to check it out. That could be a while, since I'm teleworking full time, only go in to get my badge renewed. – atc_ceedee Apr 04 '22 at 12:10