Definition
An air traffic control instruction or procedure used to move a departing aircraft along its initial departure route as quickly as practical, typically to clear the departure corridor for following traffic or to meet a flow management requirement.
Plain English
A request from ATC to fly the departure path promptly so the airspace stays clear for the next aircraft behind you.
Context Anchor
Seen in flight planning, clearance delivery, ground control, and traffic-flow delay situations before departure.
Derivation
Expedite comes from the Latin expedire, meaning to free from obstacles or hurry along. In aviation it carries the same idea: keep things moving, don't dawdle.
Why Pilots Care
Allows faster departure sequencing and helps avoid extended ground holds at busy airports.
Intuition Check
Do not read EDCT as “expedite departure path.” In FAA traffic-management use, EDCT means a planned departure time, not a command to hurry along a route.
Example Sentence 1
Tower instructed us to expedite our departure path to make room for the inbound regional jet on a short final.
Example Sentence 2
We followed the expedite departure path and were airborne within two minutes.