Citation Excel (C560XL)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Company Policy; Procedure
The Company routinely flight plans with a planned altitude on a departure fix in order to account for the higher fuel consumption when departing a satellite airport.However; when such processes are used in the Company's flight planning it ends up filing such initial lower altitude as the requested final altitude to ATC. Unfortunately; the FAA's ATC system does not seem to recognize the subsequent altitude changes included in the ICAO flight plan.The issue with such a lower altitude being filed is that it may lead to a different route than the one that would be received for the higher altitudes. This presents a number of risk factors -- E.g. Not enough fuel; multiple full route clearance changes; etc.Today's flight was planned for FL400; however; we were cleared with a planned final altitude of 16000 FT. Clearance delivery was not able to change the planned altitude and we had to ask one of the subsequent ARTCC controllers to change the altitude.
Cessna 560XLS Captain reported that the FAA's ATC system does not seem to recognize the subsequent altitude changes included in the ICAO flight plan.