What Is a NOTAM? How to Read Them Before Every Flight

A NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) is a time-critical FAA notice that alerts pilots to conditions affecting the National Airspace System — closed runways, out-of-service navaids, temporary flight restrictions, lighting outages, and more — that aren’t yet published on charts. Reviewing NOTAMs for your route and destination is a required part of preflight planning under 14 CFR § 91.103. They tell you what changed since the chart was printed.

Here’s the thing most student pilots miss: a NOTAM isn’t trivia. It’s the difference between flying an approach to a runway that’s open and flying it to one that’s covered in construction equipment. You check them before every flight, and once you can read the format, it takes about ninety seconds.

What Does NOTAM Stand For?

NOTAM stands for “Notice to Airmen.” The name has bounced around a bit lately, so here’s the short version: the FAA changed it from “Notice to Airmen” to “Notice to Air Missions” in December 2021, then reverted to “Notice to Airmen” in February 2025. Through all of that, the four-letter abbreviation never changed. So whether you hear “Notice to Airmen” or “Notice to Air Missions,” people are talking about the same document — the current official term is “Notice to Airmen.”

A NOTAM is a notice the FAA distributes electronically to tell pilots, dispatchers, and other operators about the status of the National Airspace System. Think of it as the aviation world’s way of saying “this thing changed, and you need to know before you go.”

The key idea is timing. Sectional charts and the Chart Supplement are published on a fixed cycle — every 56 days — and instrument procedures update on their own cycle. But runways close, lights fail, and airspace gets restricted on no schedule at all. NOTAMs fill that gap between what the chart says and what’s actually true today.

Why Are NOTAMs Required Before Every Flight?

NOTAMs are required because 14 CFR § 91.103 — the preflight action regulation — says that before beginning a flight, each pilot in command must become familiar with “all available information concerning that flight.” For a flight not in the vicinity of an airport, that explicitly includes weather reports, fuel requirements, alternatives, and known traffic delays. NOTAMs are part of that “all available information” standard.

In plain English: if the FAA published a NOTAM about a runway closure at your destination and you didn’t check, you can’t claim you didn’t know. The information was available. That’s the standard you’re held to.

This is why NOTAMs aren’t optional even on a clear-sky local flight. A taxiway closure, a NOTAM about a crane near the approach end of your runway, or a temporary restriction over a nearby stadium can all bite a pilot who skipped the briefing. The regulation doesn’t grade you on effort — it grades you on whether you got the information that was sitting right there.

Frame it the way I teach it: preflight planning is where you win or lose the flight, long before the engine starts. NOTAMs are a five-minute habit that keeps you out of a very bad afternoon.

What Are the Different Types of NOTAMs?

NOTAMs come in several categories defined by the FAA, and knowing the categories helps you triage what matters. The main groups are NOTAM (D) for distant or “domestic” items affecting airports and facilities, FDC NOTAMs issued by the Flight Data Center for regulatory items like amended instrument procedures and TFRs, and Pointer, Military, and International NOTAMs for more specialized needs.

For your day-to-day Private Pilot flying, two categories carry most of the weight. NOTAM (D) covers the operational status of airports, runways, taxiways, lighting, and navigation aids. FDC NOTAMs carry the regulatory stuff — changes to published approaches and, importantly, Temporary Flight Restrictions.

Here’s a quick reference for the categories you’ll actually encounter:

You don’t need to memorize every category for the checkride. You do need to recognize that a runway closure and a TFR are different animals issued through different parts of the system — and that you’re responsible for both.

How Do You Read a NOTAM?

You read a NOTAM by working through it in pieces: the affected location, a keyword that names the category, the specific condition, and the start and end times. NOTAMs use a contraction-heavy shorthand, but once you learn the common abbreviations, the format reads quickly. The location identifier comes first, then the keyword, then the detail, then the effective period.

Take a simplified example: !HOM 06/012 HOM RWY 04/22 CLSD 2606171200-2606172359. Breaking that down: the affected airport is Homer (HOM), the keyword RWY tells you it’s a runway item, CLSD means closed, and that long string of digits is the start and end time in year-month-day-hour-minute format. So Runway 04/22 at Homer is closed from midday on June 17, 2026, until just before midnight that same day.

The keywords are your fast filter. A few you’ll see constantly:

Times in NOTAMs are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), also called Zulu time — not your local time. This trips up new pilots constantly. If a NOTAM says a runway reopens at 1200Z, you need to convert that to your local time zone before you decide whether it affects your flight. Here in Alaska in summer we’re eight hours behind Zulu, so a “noon” Zulu reopening is actually 4:00 a.m. local. Read the times carefully.

If the raw format feels overwhelming, most flight planning tools and the FAA’s official search site offer a plain-language view that spells everything out. Use it while you’re learning — but learn the shorthand too, because the abbreviated version is what you’ll often get over the radio or in a quick briefing.

Where Do You Find NOTAMs?

You find NOTAMs through official FAA sources: the FAA NOTAM Search website (notams.aim.faa.gov), a standard or abbreviated briefing from Flight Service (1-800-WX-BRIEF or online), and the NOTAM sections built into most electronic flight planning apps. All of these pull from the same FAA NOTAM database, so the underlying information is the same — what differs is the presentation.

For a Private Pilot student, the cleanest habit is to get a full briefing through Flight Service or your flight planning app for every cross-country, and to do a quick NOTAM check even for local flights. The briefing groups NOTAMs by location along your route, so you see your departure airport, destination, and anything in between.

One detail worth burning into memory: you are responsible for NOTAMs along your entire route, not just your home field. A closed runway at your destination, a navaid outage you were planning to use, or a TFR sitting between you and where you’re going all count. When you pull a route briefing, read all of it — not just the line for the airport you launched from.

If you want to build the planning discipline that makes this automatic — the kind of preflight routine that keeps you day-one ready, not just checkride-ready — our free Total Student Pilot course walks you through how to plan a flight start to finish, and the full Private Pilot Ground School takes it all the way to your written test and beyond.

What Is a TFR and How Is It Different?

A Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) is a special type of FDC NOTAM that legally restricts or prohibits aircraft from operating within a defined area for a defined time. TFRs are put in place for things like wildfires, major sporting events, VIP and presidential movements, space launches, and disaster relief. Unlike a routine runway-closure NOTAM, busting a TFR is an airspace violation that carries real enforcement consequences.

This is why TFRs get singled out in training. A closed taxiway is an inconvenience. Flying into an active TFR — especially a VIP or security TFR — can mean an intercept, a violation, certificate action, and in the most serious cases, far worse. The stakes are categorically higher.

TFRs are described in 14 CFR § 91.137 (general TFRs), § 91.141 (flight restrictions near the President and other parties), and related sections. You don’t need to recite the regulation numbers on the ramp, but you do need to know that these restrictions exist, that they appear as NOTAMs, and that they can pop up with very little notice.

The practical takeaway: every time you pull a briefing, scan specifically for TFRs along your route. Many flight planning apps show them as shaded areas on the map and flag them at the top of the briefing. If there’s a stadium, a wildfire, or a major event anywhere near your route, assume a TFR is possible and confirm it.

A Lesson From the Alaska Ramp

I’ve been in aviation education since 2006, a CFI since 2017, and I still remember the lesson that made NOTAMs click for one of my students. We were planning a routine cross-country out of Homer, and he’d done a beautiful job on the chart work — winds, headings, fuel, the whole flight log. Then I asked the question I always ask: “Did you pull the NOTAMs for the whole route?”

He’d checked Homer. He hadn’t checked the destination. When we pulled the full briefing together, there it was — the runway he’d planned to land on was closed for maintenance, with only a shorter crossing runway available. Not a disaster, but a real change to the plan. The kind of thing you want to know on the ground with a cup of coffee in your hand, not on short final.

That’s the moment I tell every student about. It cost us four minutes to find. It would have cost him a go-around and a scramble to reconfigure for a shorter runway if he’d launched blind. Out here in Alaska, where the next suitable airport might be a long way off and the weather can squeeze you, those four minutes of NOTAM reading aren’t bureaucracy. They’re how you stack the deck in your favor before you ever push the throttle in.

Preflight planning is where calm gets built. You can’t be calm in the air about a surprise you could have read about on the ground.

PLT Study Guide

The FAA tags Private Pilot knowledge-test questions with PLT (Pilot Learning Statement) codes. NOTAM questions map to a small, predictable set. Here are the codes that genuinely apply to this topic, with the official FAA learning-statement wording translated into plain study points.

PLT323 — Recall NOTAMS: classes / information / distribution. This is the core NOTAM code. Know the categories (NOTAM (D), FDC NOTAMs, Pointer, Military), what kind of information each carries, and how NOTAMs are distributed (FAA NOTAM Search, Flight Service briefings, flight planning apps). Expect questions asking which type of NOTAM carries a particular kind of information.

PLT445 — Recall regulations: preflight requirements. This connects NOTAMs to 14 CFR § 91.103. Know that the pilot in command must become familiar with “all available information” before a flight, and that NOTAMs are part of that requirement. Test questions often ask what a pilot is required to review before departure.

PLT376 — Recall regulations: airspace, other, special use / TFRs. Temporary Flight Restrictions are issued as FDC NOTAMs. Know that TFRs restrict flight in a defined area for events like wildfires, VIP movements, and sporting events, and that they appear in your NOTAM briefing. Questions may ask where TFR information is found or what a TFR restricts.

Note: an early hint for this article suggested PLT072, but that code covers interpreting a Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) — a weather product, not a NOTAM topic — so it does not apply here.

Frequently Asked Questions

NOTAMs feel like alphabet soup the first time you see one, but they’re one of the easiest habits to build into your preflight routine — and one of the most valuable. Learn the keywords, get a full route briefing, convert the times to local, and scan for TFRs. Do that every flight and you’ll never be the pilot who launched into a surprise that was sitting right there in the briefing.

FROM CHRIS

That’s the kind of disciplined, day-one-ready planning we build into every student who comes through our training. Master the fundamentals on the ground, and the airplane gets a whole lot simpler.

Throttle On!

Chris Palmer

Founder & Chief CFI, Angle of Attack — Two-Time Master Aviation Educator and Gold Seal CFI