Get to know letters to airmen
Reading notices to air missions (notams) can be a tedious task for pilots, but it’s probably fair to say that most of us are pretty familiar with them and know how important they are to the safe operation of the national airspace system.
However, another source of information, separate from but presented alongside notams, is the letter to airmen or LTA. Based upon numerous interactions with members, AOPA discovered these are unknown to a large portion of the pilot community—both commercial and private.
LTAs are generated by air traffic facilities, such as towers, terminal radar approach control rooms, and air route traffic control centers, and are purely informational in nature—in other words, they are not designed to convey mandatory instructions.
The main drawback to LTAs is that they are published in PDF format. This presents a challenge for many flight planning vendors, as they find it difficult to import them for display in their products. ForeFlight began providing them in its application in June and the hope is that more vendors will follow suit.
For those not utilizing ForeFlight, the only other place to find LTAs currently is on the FAA NOTAM Search website. This lack of broad availability is unfortunate, as LTAs provide a wealth of information. AOPA, as part of our work on the 2024 NOTAM Task Force, recommended that the FAA improve both the distribution and format of LTAs.
In the meantime, pilots need to be aware that LTAs exist, what they are intended for, and where to find them.
