Amending or Cancelling Flight Plans in ForeFlight

1. Lockout-times
2. Amending Flight Plans
3. Cancelling Flight Plans

Lock-out times

In the USA

IFR flight plans can be filed up to 28 days in advance and will be transmitted to ATC up to 22 hours before the proposed departure time. Any flight plan filed less than 22 hours before the proposed departure will be sent to ATC immediately.

Amendment/Change (CHG) or Cancel (CNL)

IFR flight plans can be amended or canceled up to 47 minutes before the proposed departure time (in most cases), but some centers are over an hour (New York Center is 61 minutes). Once inside the "Filer Lock-out" window and the proposed departure time approaches the Center requires "Manual Coordination" to amended or cancel the flight plan, and you have to coordinate directly with ATC via phone or radio.

Delay (DLA) a Flight Plan

If your flight is delayed by up to 2 hours from your original departure time, just ask for your clearance. ATC still have the flight plan in their system and you should not have any problem obtaining your clearance. However, if your delay is more than 2 hours, we recommend filing a new flight plan as the previous one will expire.

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Figure 1. FAA Lock-out and deletion times

In Canada

Amendment/Change (CHG), Cancel (CNL), or Delay (DLA)

IFR flight plans can be amended, canceled, or delayed up to 45 to 60-minutes prior to departure. Once inside the "Filer Lock-out" window, the FIR requires "Manual Coordination" to amend or cancel the flight plan, and you have to coordinate directly with the appropriate FIR.

When you need to amend your destination or route of flight, Nav Canada recommends that a new flight plan be filed.

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Figure 2. NavCanada Lock-out times

In Europe

Eurocontrol allows IFR, YFR, and ZFR flight plans to be filed up to a maximum of 120 hours in advance of the Estimated Off-Block Time (EOBT+120 Hours).

VFR flight plans can be filed up to 22 hours in advance of the Estimated Off-Block time.

Amendment/Change (CHG) or Cancel (CNL)

IFR, YFR, and ZFR flight plans can be amended or canceled up to 2 hours after the Estimated Off-Block Time (“EOBT”). We do not recommend amending to change routing or significantly changing any part of the flight plan as this can lead to a higher probability of reaching a rejection.

Amending Flight Plans

In this example, we have successfully filed a flight plan and want to change our cruise altitude from 8000ft to 6000ft.

Figure 3. Filed Flight Plan

Select the cruise altitude field

Figure 4. Flight Plan filed at 8000ft

Select the new cruise altitude of 6000ft

Figure 5. Altitude advisor

The new cruise altitude of 6000 is now loaded in ForeFlight. It is important to note that the flight plan on file has not been changed.

Figure 6. Flight Plan altitude changed

Select the amend button

Figure 7. Select the Amend button

After selecting the Amend button, ForeFlight will detect that the filed flight plan and the one currently in ForeFlight are different. A pop-up box asking to confirm the changes and copy them to an Amended flight plan will appear.

Figure 8. Copy changes

After confirming the changes and selecting the Copy button a new File screen will appear.

Figure 9. The File screen

Select the "Amend" button to send the changes to ATC.

Figure 10. Select the Amend button

After selecting Amend, the changes will be sent to ATC. You will receive an acknowledgment that the changes have been received and a new briefing will be sent to the email listed in the flight plan.

Cancelling Flight Plans

First, ensure that the plan is on file. This will be indicated by the word "Filed" displayed in the lower left of the Flight screen.
Second, ensure that you are outside of the Lock-out time for the region or FIR that the flight is filed from.