International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Amendment 74 (AMD74) to ICAO Annex 3 introduced new Terminal Area Forecast (TAF) codes on 5 November 2008, mainly concerning the extension of the validity period of the TAF and the fact that short and long TAFs may no longer be issued for the same aerodrome, whereas Amendment 76 (AMD76) allows for the replacement of alphanumeric codes for OPMET by XML, therefore “states in a position to do so” may exchange METAR, SPECI,TAF and SIGMET in XML starting in November 2013.
Updates to the NetSys software in support of AMD74 to allow processing of old as well as new format reports were installed at user sites well in advance of the implementation date and development in support of AMD76 is far advanced, attested to by our participation in the succesfull test transmission of an XML encoded METAR from Brussels to Hong Kong in 2009 already, thus ensuring a smooth and error-free transition period for our customers
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