AIRWAYS Entry & the "NOT IN DATABASE" Fix
PremiumintermediateThe "NOT IN DATABASE" message is the single most common thing to go wrong when entering an airway. Here is why it appears and how to insert an airway properly — L612, the first airway from London to Paris.
What this scenario covers
The path the Airbus FCOM documents for an airway is a lateral revision on the waypoint where you want to join, which opens the AIRWAYS page, where the airway identifier and the waypoint at which you leave it are entered as a pair. The manual describes no other way in — some simulators, this trainer among them, also accept an airway typed straight onto a flight-plan line, but that is a convenience the FCOM neither confirms nor rules out, so the lateral revision is the one to know.
"NOT IN DATABASE" means precisely what it says: the FMGS has no airway by that identifier — usually a typo, or a waypoint name typed where the airway belongs. An airway that exists but does not pass through the waypoint you started the revision from is a different message, AWY/WPT MISMATCH, and the scenario sets the route up so that the airway has a point to start from.
How it applies in flight ops
European flight plans are airway-heavy, and a crew loading a route from the OFP is doing this repeatedly and quickly. Being fluent in the LAT REV → AIRWAYS path is the difference between loading a route in two minutes and fighting the box for ten.
The message is also a useful check on the route itself. If the FMGS says an airway the OFP names is not in the database, either the navigation database is out of cycle or the plan is wrong — and both are worth knowing about before departure.
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The MCDU checks every entry as you make it, and tells you when an entry was accepted but wrong.
Step-by-step: AIRWAYS Entry & the "NOT IN DATABASE" Fix
- First set up a short route to work with. Type EGLL/LFPG into the scratchpad and press 1R to enter it into the FROM/TO field.
EGLL is London Heathrow and LFPG is Paris Charles de Gaulle. Once you enter FROM/TO, the FMS builds a skeleton flight plan with a gap — a discontinuity — between the two airports. You fill that gap with the route: first the point where it joins the airways, then the airways themselves.
- Press the F-PLN key to open the flight plan.
The F-PLN page lists your route as a sequence of waypoints. Right now it shows EGLL, a DISCONTINUITY, then LFPG. This is the page you work from to add an airway.
- An airway has to start from a point it passes through, and no airway passes through an airport. Heathrow's Paris traffic joins the airways at the Midhurst VOR: type MID and press 2L, next to the discontinuity, to put it after EGLL.
In the real aircraft a SID from Heathrow to MODMI and airway M185 bring you to Midhurst (MID). The trainer does not carry Heathrow's SIDs, so MID stands in for that departure. Try L612 from EGLL instead and the FMS answers AWY/WPT MISMATCH — a different message from the one this scenario is about.
- With the scratchpad EMPTY, press 2L — the line key next to MID. This opens the LAT REV (lateral revision) page for that waypoint.
This is the path the Airbus FCOM documents for airways: you press the key of the waypoint you want to revise FROM, with nothing in the scratchpad, which opens LAT REV — the lateral revision menu for that point — and AIRWAYS is on it. The FCOM does not describe typing an airway straight onto the F-PLN line at all; this trainer accepts that as a shortcut, but LAT REV is the way the manual gives. The "click-to-copy" gesture some sims teach does not exist on the real MCDU.
- On the LAT REV page, press 5R (AIRWAYS>) to open the AIRWAYS page.
LAT REV is the menu for lateral changes from a waypoint: departures, arrivals, holds, new destination — and AIRWAYS. The AIRWAYS page is where you string airways together to build the enroute portion of your flight plan.
- Now let's reproduce the error everyone hits. Type L6122 (a deliberate typo — one 2 too many) into the scratchpad and press 1L. The MCDU rejects it with NOT IN DATA BASE.
NOT IN DATABASE means the FMS navigation database has no airway with that exact name. The cause is almost always one of three things: (1) a typo or wrong letter/number, (2) a waypoint name typed where an airway name belongs, or (3) the airway genuinely isn't in your AIRAC cycle for that region. An airway that does exist but doesn't pass through the waypoint you started from gets a different message, AWY/WPT MISMATCH. Neither is a bug — it's the FMS protecting you from an invalid route.
- The real airway is L612. You don't need to clear the message — just start typing. Type L612 (it replaces the error text), then press 1L to accept it.
L612 is a real airway running south from the Midhurst VOR to BOGNA on the south coast, the first airway of the route ATC expects from Heathrow to Paris. Once accepted, the AIRWAYS page previews the airway's waypoints so you can confirm it before committing it to the flight plan.
- Set where you leave the airway. Type BOGNA into the scratchpad and press 1R to enter it into the TO field.
The TO waypoint tells the FMS how far along the airway to follow it: from MID, L612 takes you to BOGNA, where the route leaves it for a direct leg across the Channel. TO is BOGNA, not the destination LFPG. With both the VIA (L612) and TO (BOGNA) set, the INSERT prompt appears so you can commit the airway to your route.
- Press 6R to INSERT the airway. The FMS adds BOGNA after MID, giving you EGLL → MID → BOGNA → LFPG.
Inserting an airway fills in every waypoint between your start and TO from the navigation database. The rest of the way to Paris — direct HARDY, then M605 and UM605 to BIBAX — goes in the same way; the London to Paris scenario builds all of it. That's the whole airway workflow — and now you know exactly what NOT IN DATABASE means and how to recover from it.
What to take away
- The FCOM's route for an airway is a lateral revision on the joining waypoint.
- The AIRWAYS page takes the airway and the waypoint where you leave it, as a pair.
- "NOT IN DATABASE" means the identifier is unknown; a wrong join point is AWY/WPT MISMATCH.
- A rejected airway is a signal about the route or the database cycle — do not just retype it.
The rest of Flight Plans & Routing
London Heathrow to Paris CDG
beginnerA complete short-haul setup, gate to gate on paper: London Heathrow to Paris Charles de Gaulle, the sector every A320 pilot in Europe has flown a hundred times.
📍 EGLL → MID → BOGNA → HARDY → XIDIL → BIBAX → LFPG (via L612, M605, UM605)⏱ ~7 min📊 23 stepsSID & STAR: KPHX → KLAS
intermediateYour first real procedure practice: pick a departure out of Phoenix and an arrival into Las Vegas, from the trainer's real FAA procedure data.
📍 KPHX → KLAS — SID + STAR practice⏱ ~5 min📊 5 stepsClosing an F-PLN Discontinuity
PremiumbeginnerThe F-PLN DISCONTINUITY line is not an error message. It is the FMGS telling you it does not know how you intend to join two pieces of route.
📍 EGLL → MID → BOGNA → LFPG⏱ ~5 min📊 5 stepsRoute Correction
intermediateYou typed the wrong destination. Every pilot has. The skill being practised is not avoiding the mistake — it is catching it and clearing it out cleanly.
📍 EGLL → MID → BOGNA → LFPG (via L612)⏱ ~3 min📊 10 steps
Background reading
- GuideThe A320 MCDU Explained: Every Page, Simply
What is the A320 MCDU? A plain-English guide to every Airbus MCDU page — INIT, F-PLN, PERF, RAD NAV and more. Practice free in our MCDU trainer.
- GuideSimBrief Not Working in MSFS 2024? Every Fix for Missing Routes and Broken Imports
SimBrief plan not loading in MSFS 2024? Fixes for the Import button doing nothing, missing waypoints, an empty FMC, and PMDG/Fenix quirks.
- Guide737 FMC Constraints — 250B/, 10000A, and Every LEGS-Page Format That Actually Works
Every 737 CDU constraint format that works: A and B suffixes, speed/altitude pairs, the trailing slash rule, windows, DELETE, and why entries get rejected.