Glossary Your data and help

The terms are grouped: the organisations and the data link, the two reports and their measures, how a figure is judged, the files, and the service's own words. A term in another article links to its entry here.

The organisations and the data link#

ANSP#

Air navigation service provider: the organisation that runs air traffic services in a flight information region. Your organisation, in the service's words.

FIR#

Flight information region: the airspace an ANSP reports on. Each record carries its FIR in the ANSP column; your plan has a number of FIR slots, and a chosen FIR stays locked.

CSP#

Communication service provider: the company whose network carries the data link between aircraft and ground, such as a satellite or VHF provider. The names you give in the data setup are offered when an outage is recorded.

CSP outage#

A period in which a CSP's network was down. Recorded by hand or imported from notices; once your handling of outages is verified, the transactions and reports that fall in a recorded outage are set aside before measuring.

CPDLC#

Controller–pilot data link communications: text messages between the controller and the pilot. A CPDLC transaction is an uplink message and its response; the RCP report measures them.

ADS-C#

Automatic dependent surveillance, contract: position reports an aircraft sends automatically under a contract with the ground system. The RSP report measures how fast they arrive.

Media#

The link that carried a transaction or report: satellite (SAT), VHF, HF, or a mixed code when more than one was used. The media type decides the specification a record is judged against.

RGS#

Remote ground station: the station that relayed a message. Recorded in the files; used in the consistency checks and, for CPDLC, the per-station view.

The two reports and their measures#

RCP#

Required communication performance: the standard that says how fast a CPDLC transaction must complete. The RCP report measures ACTP, ACP and PORT against it.

RSP#

Required surveillance performance: the standard that says how fast an ADS-C report must arrive. The RSP report measures ASP against it.

RCP 240 and RCP 400#

The two RCP specifications. RCP 240 applies to satellite and VHF: ACP within 180 s for 95% and 210 s for 99.9% of transactions, ACTP within 120 s and 150 s, PORT within 60 s at 95%. RCP 400 applies to HF: ACP within 320 s and 370 s, ACTP within 260 s and 310 s, PORT within 60 s.

RSP 180 and RSP 400#

The two RSP specifications. RSP 180 applies to satellite and VHF: report delivery within 90 s for 95% and 180 s for 99.9% of reports. RSP 400 applies to HF: within 300 s and 400 s.

ACP#

Actual communication performance: the whole transaction time, from the uplink to the pilot's response arriving back. Measured on intervention transactions answered by a single WILCO.

ACTP#

Actual communication technical performance: the technical part of the transaction, the time the link took without the pilot's response. Measured on every valid transaction answered by a single WILCO, intervention or not.

PORT#

Pilot operational response time: the time the pilot took to respond; ACP minus ACTP. Measured on intervention transactions, at 95% within 60 s.

ASP#

Actual surveillance performance: the delivery time of an ADS-C report, from the aircraft's time stamp to the ground's receipt.

WILCO#

The pilot's "will comply" response. Only uplinks answered by a single WILCO are measured, as the standards require.

Intervention transaction#

A CPDLC uplink that asks the pilot to do something, as opposed to information messages. ACP and PORT count intervention transactions only; the non-intervention uplink messages are left out of those two and kept for ACTP.

How a figure is judged#

Benchmark#

One column of the standard tables: a measure, a limit and a criterion, such as "ACP within 180 s at 95%". The dashboard, trends, alerts, watchlists and the map all choose among the same benchmarks.

Criterion#

The share a group must reach: 95% or 99.9%, depending on the column. Judged on the unrounded share; the 99.9% criterion is read at one decimal, so a share meets it from 99.85%.

Band#

The amber zone below the 99.9% criterion, 99.0% to 99.84%, the yellow band of the regional report template. The 95% criterion has no band.

Verdict#

What a figure gets once judged: meets, marginal, or under the criterion; green, amber, red in the tables.

Not assessed#

A group with fewer than 100 records in the period is not judged, and is grey in the tables. Not a failure: too few records to say.

Indicative#

A share that rests on at least 100 but fewer than 1,000 records; shown, judged, and marked as resting on few records.

Prepared rows#

The rows left after the preparation rules: duplicates resolved, invalid values set aside, responses other than a single WILCO set aside, non-intervention uplinks left out of ACP and PORT, and rows in recorded outages set aside when the exclusion applies. Every figure is computed from prepared rows.

Invalid value#

A value the reports cannot measure: not a number, ACTP below 0, PORT or a transit time at or below 0. Kept in the file, left out of the figures.

Duplicate#

A second row for the same transaction (registration, date, uplink time, ground station) or report (registration, date, aircraft time, position). The reports count each once; when a file was uploaded again, the latest upload counts.

Ruleset#

The named, versioned bundle of specifications, limits, criteria, bands, preparation rules and thresholds under which every figure is computed. The Rules page shows the one that applies to your organisation, rule by rule with its sources.

Analytical#

The label on every page and export while the ruleset's rules have not yet been verified against the published ICAO editions: computed under the rules as read from public copies. The figures are the same before and after verification unless the check finds a difference.

Period#

The span a page shows: a month, a quarter, a year, all records, or a custom period of at least one month. A page opens on the quarter that holds your latest record.

The files#

Upload#

One CSV file you gave the service, with its type, its status, its checks and its rows. The unit you delete or replace.

Review#

The step after the upload and before the import: the first rows, each field matched to a column of your file, the date format, and the findings. Nothing is imported until you confirm it.

Finding#

One line of the data-quality checks on a file: rows that will be rejected, dates that look wrong, duplicates, rows already uploaded, values the reports set aside, and more. A check when rows will be rejected or look wrong; a note when they are counted but worth knowing.

Rejected row#

A row the import left out: an empty mandatory field, or a date that could not be read. Counted and listed, never guessed.

Registration, operator, aircraft type#

The REG, OPER and TYPE columns: the aircraft's registration, its airline, its type. They name the lines of the operator and aircraft-type sections and the series of the graphs; NOT AVAILABLE counts, without a type or operator.

The service's own words#

Admin and Editor#

The two roles. An Editor uploads files and reads and exports every report; an Admin does the same and manages the users, the organisation and the billing.

Data setup#

The questionnaire about your files: who produces them, how they write dates and times and in which zone, your CSPs and media, how outages are handled. Every answer carries a state.

Not confirmed, declared, verified#

The three states of a data-setup answer: not answered or "not confirmed yet"; answered by your Admin, shown with the reports but changing no figure; checked by SkyLink with you, your supplier or your documents, and only then allowed to change a figure.

Watchlist#

The list of aircraft and operators under a criterion in two or more consecutive months with enough records, per FIR, with an investigation and its notes.

Alert#

A rule that watches a benchmark, the findings of a file or an expected upload, and emails every user of your organisation when it fires; each alert is raised once and kept in the log.

Template#

A saved report of the builder: dataset, measures, period, FIRs, grouping and filters, to run again or to schedule.

Scheduled report#

A report sent by email on the first day of the month or the quarter, for the previous period, to the users you chose, as PDF or CSV.

Support session#

A period in which SkyLink's support opens your organisation's data at your request. Every page opened in it is logged, and the log is yours on request.