At larger airports, common taxi instructions are sometimes "named" for brevity as they are repeated often. For (an entirely contrived) example,

Taxi to terminal via alpha, tango, foxtrot, mike four, sierra

could be shortened to something like

Taxi via red-flower

Where can these common taxi route definitions be found?

  • 5
    $\begingroup$ if you don't understand the short instruction then you can always ask the controller for the full list $\endgroup$ Apr 11 '15 at 23:46

Excerpt from the FAA Publication "Instrument Procedures Handbook":

Standard taxi routes improve ground management at highdensity airports, namely those that have airline service. At these airports, typical taxiway traffic patterns used to move aircraft between gate and runway are laid out and coded. The ATC specialist (ATCS) can reduce radio communication time and eliminate taxi instruction misinterpretation by simply clearing the pilot to taxi via a specific, named route. An example of this would be Los Angeles International Airport (KLAX), where North Route is used to transition to Runway 24L. [Figure 1-7] These routes are issued by ground control, and if unable to comply, pilots must advise ground control on initial contact. If for any reason the pilot becomes uncertain as to the correct taxi route, a request should be made for progressive taxi instructions. These step-by-step routing directions are also issued if the controller deems it necessary due to traffic, closed taxiways, airport construction, etc. It is the pilot’s responsibility to know if a particular airport has preplanned taxi routes, to be familiar with them, and to have the taxi descriptions in their possession. Specific information about airports that use coded taxiway routes is included in the Notice to Airmen Publication (NTAP).

NTAP can be found on: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/notices/

At the time of writing the KLAX North Route example can be found on page 4-SW-11, and reads:

North Route Taxi towards taxilane Sierra (S) taxi northbound on taxilane Sierra (S), and at Check-point-1 contact Ground Control on frequency 121.65, hold short of taxiway Delta (D). Taxilane Sierra (S) is not visible from the ATCT

There's also FAA Advisory Circular 7110.116 regulating Standard Taxi Routes (STR's) as bilateral agreements (LOA's - Letter of Agreement) between each ATC unit and their users (airlines). The document contains information on what the LOA needs to contain.

Outside of the US, standard taxi instructions, if any, could be expected to be found in the AD-section (Aerodromes) of that respective country's AIP (Aeronautical Information Publication).

As an airline pilot, this information might be integrated into your company's nav data solution, ie. information about standard taxi routes available to you would be written/drawn out bundled with your airport diagrams etc.


If it's not a taxi-way odd name(Inner/Outer/Dixie, etc) that's on the chart, it's usually a procedure that's in a letter of agreement with the specific airline/companies. I know at Atlanta, there's a Letter of Agreement with some of the airlines(Delta I know for sure, not positive about others and don't have access from home to the repository), where they'll taxi via the Victor loop, which denotes taxi-ways, and when to change to the appropriate ground control frequency.

To find these out, you'd have to be privy to the specific LOA at each airport. Or if you've flown in and out of the airport enough you will often be able to figure them out by watching those privy to the LOA and what they do.


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