The FAA last week published a notice in the Federal Register that defines the specific types of ATC services the agency provides in oceanic regions. The notice serves as the FAA’s means to comply with ICAO requirements to create ATC standards and recommended practices under the annexes that make up the Chicago Convention.
The U.S. is responsible for ATC services over the domestic U.S. and within certain areas of the western half of the North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the North Pacific. In the airspace over the contiguous U.S. and out to 12 nm from the U.S. shores, domestic ATC separation is applied, with certain limitations, along with additional services such as traffic advisories, bird-activity information, weather, chaff information and so on. The U.S. also manages control areas and flight information regions outside U.S. airspace where oceanic separation procedures consistent with ICAO regional procedures are applied.