FAA enables ATC clearance via EFBs

Deputy Administrator Chris Rocheleau announced the release of Mobile Clearance Delivery at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in Wisconsin. The agency says the new procedure “is part of the FAA’s effort to modernize communications between pilots and air traffic controllers to improve safety and efficiency.”

“When we think about the ability to take roughly 15,000 IFR clearances a day and change that into a text... it really is our ability to kind of lower the readback errors and some of the other problems we're having and just send out that visual clearance, accept, and go,” said Rocheleau.

The FAA worked with the makers of ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot—the two most popular electronic flight bag applications—to integrate Mobile Clearance Delivery, which will benefit pilots and air traffic controllers.

Mobile Clearance Delivery is cloud-based and does not require expensive, proprietary technology, enabling the FAA to roll it out across the country quickly.

“The technology that drives this capability is cloud-based, and what that means is that the hardware that’s required for an FAA facility is very inexpensive, it’s low-cost, and very easy for the FAA to install,” said FAA Mobile Clearance Delivery Program Manager Jillian Cheng.

“I think mobile clearance is going to save pilots a lot of time. I’m based at an uncontrolled field, so instead of calling Chicago Center and getting my clearance... writing it down, reading it down, and then plugging it into the avionics… there’s no chance for error in jotting it down or importing it into the avionics, so it saves me time," said Garmin Senior Aviation Marketing Manager Kyle Ludwick.

“It’s been more than a year in close coordination with the FAA with partner MITRE as well, working on the experience both for pilots and for controllers to collaborate more closely,” said ForeFlight Head of Flight Deck Travis Root.

Root said Mobile Clearance Delivery is available 30 minutes prior to departure time and up to one hour and 45 minutes after.

“It’s designed to be very intuitive. You need a minimum of instruction. Most pilots will encounter it for the first time without having read ahead and we wanted it to be easy to use right out of the box with no familiarity and I think that we’ve achieved that,” added Root.

Mobile Clearance Delivery is currently available at five airports, including three in the Houston area:

• Appleton International Airport, Wisconsin
• David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport, Texas
• Sugar Land Regional Airport, Texas
• Scholes International at Galveston Airport, Texas
• New Century Aircenter Airport, Kansas

Ludwick said he tested Mobile Clearance Delivery prior to AirVenture in Appleton.

“I flew up there and tested it with the team from the FAA and MITRE and was so excited to sit in the FBO or do a bunch of testing... but then also receive a clearance to fly home in my own airplane. It worked absolutely seamlessly,” said Ludwick.

The FAA plans to add additional locations in Kansas City, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee; and Austin, Texas, in the fall, ahead of a nationwide deployment in the spring of 2027.

In the coming months, the FAA will also add the capability for pilots to cancel an IFR clearance after landing at a nontowered airport—eliminating the need for a phone call to ATC.

Cheng says the reaction at AirVenture was “overwhelmingly positive,” noting that pilots and air traffic controllers “cannot wait to use this.”