Large Transport
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 4
Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Procedure; Company Policy; Human Factors
A flight plan for Aircraft X printed out to LAS and due to national reroutes; the flight plan was coordinated to be changed by Boston Center TMU. This new route was read to the crew by Clearance Delivery. Later on; Aircraft X filed a slightly different flight plan for Aircraft X. This flight plan was not noticed by the Controller at Clearance Delivery; most probably because of our new procedures where the PDC has been set to auto-mode. Because of this; we are no longer alerted to duplicate flight plans like before. The only way to ensure there are no duplicate flight plans is to check all new flight plans out of the printer with all of the existing flight plans on Local Control East; Local Control West; Ground Control 1 (and sometimes Ground Control 2); and the flight plans at Clearance Delivery. This is not only unreasonable but practically impossible to do.I am not entirely sure as to what happened with the TRACON; but somehow Aircraft X was tagged up on a different beacon code than expected. The TRACON called to check on how this could've happened. This is when the second flight plan for Aircraft X was found. There was a difference in the routes and we were honestly unsure of which flight plan route Aircraft X would be flying. We quickly coordinated with the TRACON and Boston Center to be sure they knew of the situation and needed to verify Aircraft X's route. Fortunately; the difference in the routes was minor but this event has been happening much more frequently recently because of our new auto-mode PDC. I honestly believe it is only a matter of time until something more serious happens because of this new auto-mode PDC. The same kind of duplicate no-notice flight plans were filed today; however they were noticed by the Clearance Delivery Controller.Immediately suspend the use of auto-mode PDC. There are still a large number of controllers that are against this change to auto-mode and it could even be the majority. Generally; the people that oppose PDC in auto-mode oppose it for safety issues - we have no control over what is sent out. Bad flight plans are automatically sent to flight crews and there is nothing controllers can do to stop it. It is widely believed this is why [one individual] pushed to change to auto-mode; they wanted to try it out for the sake of trying it out and/or to show off. In the future; more discussion needs to come before any major changes; especially when these changes are not necessary and are for 'let's try this out because we can' reasons. The first time most of us controllers heard of PDC going to auto-mode was during a briefing that it was going to happen. The majority of controllers in my briefing (including myself) were opposed to auto-mode PDC and thought its use was unsafe. We wondered why someone would want to use auto-mode in the first place.
Reporter complains about two flight plans being filed by an airline; and the use of the PDC in the auto-mode. Reporter does not like this mode and feels that something serious may happen.