Fixing NOTAM Overload: Why Pilots Must Lead the Change

For decades, pilots have relied on NOTAMs to provide timely, safety-critical updates about aeronautical facilities, procedures, and hazards. In principle, NOTAMs are an indispensable part of flight operations. In reality, however, they have become one of the industry’s most persistent and well-documented safety vulnerabilities.

Across global operations, NOTAMs frequently fail to deliver what ICAO Annex 15 describes as “timely knowledge essential to personnel concerned with flight operations.”

Instead, they often achieve the opposite: burying crucial updates beneath pages of ambiguity, repetition, and obsolete information.

A System Bent Out of Shape

Pilots hardly need reminding of the state of today’s NOTAM system. Daily briefings frequently contain dozens, sometimes hundreds, of items, many of which offer little clarity or relevance. What should enhance situational awareness instead erodes it.

The consequences of this information overload are well-known: briefings are often swollen with excessive volume, written in inconsistent or unclear phrasing, cluttered with duplication, burdened by outdated validity periods, and diluted with content that is ambiguous or irrelevant. The result is a briefing environment where essential information must fight for attention amid a sea of noise, sometimes unsuccessfully.

This slow decline has become a textbook case of normalisation of deviance. Over the years, as NOTAM volume grew and quality diminished, pilots and operators steadily accepted the situation as the norm. The industry tolerated an expanding flood of information without a matching investment in tools, filtering, or improved standards. No single moment marked the point where the system tipped from functional to hazardous, but it has now unquestionably crossed that threshold.

No Silver Bullet (Yet)

Some airlines and data providers have introduced tools to make NOTAMs more digestible, offering improved presentation, better grouping, or machine-assisted filtering. AI solutions show strong potential in extracting relevance, prioritising content, and reducing duplication. Yet these improvements are uneven. Without a universally adopted standard, NOTAM presentation remains inconsistent and, too often, ineffective.

A longer-term and more significant development is ICAO’s work on System Wide Information Management (SWIM). This major redesign of how aeronautical information is distributed promises to modernise the entire ecosystem. IFALPA is actively engaged in shaping this framework to ensure that pilot needs are embedded from the outset. But implementation lies in the 2030s, and the industry cannot afford to wait passively.

There is a vital role for line pilots, those who interact with NOTAM briefings daily. Operators, NOTAM originators and data houses depend on pilot feedback to understand where information is ambiguous, excessive, or misaligned with operational needs. Only pilots experience how briefing packages perform in real life, under time pressure, during demanding operations. Their perspective is irreplaceable.

Why Pilot Action Is Essential

The current situation emerged partly because pilots did not push back against the system’s slow degradation. Fixing it requires the opposite: active engagement.

Safety Reports are a recognised, formal avenue for addressing hazards. Poor-quality NOTAMs, from those that are outdated, irrelevant, or incorrectly published, to those that simply overwhelm, are a safety hazard. They waste time, increase workload, and heighten the risk of missing critical details. Thoroughly analysing every NOTAM in a modern Pre-Flight Information Bulletin (PIB) is often unrealistic within operational time constraints.

This is why the industry now urges pilots to file Safety Reports whenever NOTAM content or formatting hampers clarity, usability, or safety. These reports provide concrete evidence to operators, NOTAM originators, and briefing providers. When enough data accumulates, patterns become impossible to ignore.

Examples of When to File a NOTAM Safety Report

There are several situations in which pilots should consider filing a NOTAM Safety Report. These include NOTAMs that are irrelevant to the flight, those that are ambiguous, unclear, or otherwise difficult to interpret, and instances where the same information is repeated across multiple NOTAMs within the same PIB. Reports are also appropriate when content does not meet ICAO publication criteria, when a NOTAM provides no meaningful operational information, or when it contains incorrect or misleading details.

Duration is another key factor. NOTAMs that remain valid beyond the recommended 90 days should be questioned. While extensions of up to 150 days are permitted, information lasting this long is rarely temporary and ought to be incorporated into the AIP or issued as an AIP Supplement. Similarly, NOTAMs older than 150 days, and certainly those that have been in circulation for more than a year, warrant scrutiny and reporting.

Pilots should also keep in mind that some NOTAMs, such as those related to stand closures, cranes, or routine construction, may appear irrelevant but are in fact published correctly under ICAO criteria. Even so, submitting a Safety Report can help data houses improve filtering and categorisation so that such information does not unnecessarily clutter briefing packages.

How to File a Clear, Effective NOTAM Report

An effective NOTAM Safety Report should clearly identify the NOTAM designator, for example, EDDB C25/22, as well as the date of the report. It should include the specific reason for filing, such as excessive age, irrelevance to flight operations, a lack of temporary status, or unnecessary duplication. Finally, the report should explain why this type of NOTAM should not have been issued in its present form. Concise, factual reporting enables operators, originators, and data providers to recognise patterns and address systemic issues.

When NOTAM Failures Become Safety Events

NOTAM overload is not an academic concern, it has already contributed to serious incidents:

Air Canada Flight 759 – San Francisco, 2017

An A320 nearly landed on an occupied taxiway at night, missing a catastrophic collision by seconds.

NOTAM factor: A critical runway-closure NOTAM was buried in a 27-page briefing, lost amid poorly prioritised data.

Virgin Australia 737-800 – Brisbane, 2022

The aircraft departed from a closed section of runway.

NOTAM factor: The captain misinterpreted a dispatcher’s note and dismissed a relevant NOTAM due to distraction and information overload. The ATSB highlighted NOTAM confusion as a contributing hazard.

Sky Lease Cargo 747-400F – Halifax, 2018

A major runway overrun occurred after the crew selected a shorter runway, mistakenly believing no approach was available for the longer one.

NOTAM factor: The crew received 98 NOTAMs, including 37 for Halifax alone. Critical approach information was lost in repetitive, all-caps text.

In each case, NOTAM presentation contributed directly to operational misunderstanding.

The Momentum Exists: Now We Need Action

The NOTAM system has been allowed to drift into dysfunction, but the industry now recognises the scale of the problem. Tools are improving. Awareness is increasing. ICAO is redesigning the future infrastructure. But the missing ingredient is the consistent involvement of pilots.

As the end users of NOTAMs, pilots are uniquely positioned to provide feedback that can drive meaningful change. Filing thorough Safety Reports is one of the most effective steps we can take to highlight the system’s shortcomings and push for the standards, clarity, and relevance that modern operations demand.

The NOTAM system can be fixed—but only if those who depend on it take an active role in shaping its future.