Definition
Recorded weather and aeronautical information covering specific routes of flight, made available by the FAA through the Telephone Information Briefing Service (TIBS). Route briefings provide a continuous, telephone-accessible summary of conditions along defined routes, intended as a preliminary planning tool rather than a replacement for a standard preflight briefing.
Plain English
A recorded phone message that gives weather and flight information for specific routes, so a pilot can listen to it as a quick first look before getting a full briefing.
Context Anchor
Seen when using the FAA Telephone Information Briefing Service to get recorded information before a flight.
Derivation
"Route" comes from the Old French rute meaning a path or way; "briefing" comes from "brief," originally a short written summary. Together the term means a short, prepared summary covering a specific path of flight.
Why Pilots Care
Provides pilots with relevant, up-to-date information for their specific route to support safe go/no-go decisions and flight planning.
Intuition Check
Do not assume route briefings are automatically complete or personal to your exact flight. In this context, they are general briefings for a route and may need to be followed by a current full briefing.
Example Sentence 1
Before driving to the airport, the pilot called the TIBS line and listened to the route briefing for the corridor between her departure and destination airports.
Example Sentence 2
Route briefings helped identify possible icing conditions along the planned path before departure.