Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Procedure; Company Policy
The PDC received directed our flight to use the BLUFS ONE departure from OMA. Initial altitude using this DP is 4;000 feet. We initiated a courtesy call prior to pushing. At this point the Ground Controller inquired our departure clearance. He then advised we should have received clearance using the CATTL ONE departure based on direction. He advised the PDC was wrong. Please note: This was not a revised clearance. WE received a PDC stating one DP AND ATC EXPECTED us to use another DP. While 1;000 feet amongst friends is gracious; we all know the consequences of being off 1;000 feet. We are not sure how ATC caught this trap; however; we are appreciative of the catch.This is a pure ATC quality assurance event with us as operators caught in the middle. I would suggest a call to OMA and ascertain how our crews can assist by providing a 'reasonability audit.' An FAA Inspector was a part of our crew. He had no additional comments at the time; however; his input would be welcomed.
We arrived in OMA over an hour late; and our paperwork indicated our filed flight number was amended to flight number with an 'A' suffix. Everything was initialized fine using the original flight number within ACARS; except that our PDC was unavailable. We called clearance delivery for our clearance via voice; and the controller told us that PDC was available; and we should request it under 'XXXA'. After resending the data page; we received our PDC. We then had to resend the flight data page in order to get our performance numbers under the original flight again. Since all this seemed odd to us; we contacted clearance delivery to verify our PDC and that everyone was on the same page. ATC advised that our squawk and route received via PDC was correct; but our SID was incorrect for some reason. We re-verified everything with the controller one more time; then continued with the rest of our pre-departure prep.I have no idea why this was such a mess; except that I suspect that ATC should have given us our voice clearance to begin with; rather than instructing us to attempt to retrieve it under the new flight number. I'm still not sure why the SID on the PDC was incorrect though (may have been an unrelated issue).
A CRJ900 flight crew is assigned an 'A' suffix to their flight number due to being late. This results in the wrong SID being received via PDC. The crew contacts Clearance Delivery to verify the route and the error is discovered.