INIT A: ROUTE IDENTITY, ECONOMIC INPUTS AND INITIALIZATION EFFECTS
INIT A establishes the sector around which the later route and predictions are built. Our offline teaching set is EDDF/EGLL, flight MC2026, alternate EGKK, CI 20 and FL280. Those values are fixed exercise assumptions, not a runway clearance or live online callsign assignment. Enter the identity early, then confirm that every later import, company message and performance task still describes that same sector. [66, PDF pp. 102-112]
1. Enter FROM/TO. Type EDDF/EGLL and select the field carrying that label. Read the accepted airports and any company-route selection offered as a result. Where routes are offered, inspect the applicable record before selecting it. A saved company route can supply substantial information, so regard its selection as a route-initialization action rather than a decorative name attached to empty fields. [66, PDF pp. 102-112]
2. Enter flight and alternate identity. Put MC2026 in FLT NBR and EGKK in the appropriate alternate field for the exercise. If a combined alternate/company-route field is displayed, read its grammar and resulting values. A matching alternate identifier establishes the alternate airport, not a detailed diversion route or realistic alternate fuel allowance. Those are separate planning items reviewed later. [66, PDF pp. 102-112]
3. Enter economic and atmospheric assumptions. Put 20 in COST INDEX and 280 in CRZ FL/TEMP when entering the level alone, then verify FL280. Supply cruise temperature from the actual OFP/weather when required. The guide's default behaviour is not a reason to invent a forecast temperature. Cost index influences the economic schedule; it is not a direct instruction to maintain 20 knots or any fixed cruise speed. [66, PDF pp. 102-112]
4. Separate planning level from clearance. The cruise reference supports predictions and phase logic. The FCU altitude reflects the current cleared target. An initial clearance below FL280 does not require pretending that the planned cruise has already changed, while a genuine revised cruise plan does require the reference to be reconciled. Decide which situation exists before using an altitude entry to repair a phase or prediction. [66, PDF pp. 102-112]
5. Read the consequences of reinitialization. A new FROM/TO pair is not an ordinary waypoint edit; it re-establishes the sector and its dependent route context in the documented standard. Use targeted revisions for a local mistake. When a clean preflight rebuild is intended, deliberately re-enter or reload the intended identity and repeat route, mass and performance checks. Do not treat the resulting empty fields as proof that all earlier preparation survived. [66, PDF pp. 102-112]