NOTAM system
What Is a NOTAM (D)?
A NOTAM (D) — the D stands for Distant — is the airport and facility notice distributed beyond the local area. It is the category that carries almost every closed runway and closed taxiway, along with lighting outages, obstacles, navigation aid failures and works in progress. This page explains what the D means, what these notices cover, and how one reads line by line.
Awareness and training aid only. Always verify with official NOTAM briefings, current charts, approved EFBs, ATC, dispatch, and company procedures before any real operation.
What does the D in NOTAM (D) stand for?
The D stands for Distant. A NOTAM (D) is an airport or facility notice distributed beyond the local area, so that a pilot flying in from anywhere can see it during flight planning. It is the workhorse of the NOTAM system and the category that carries almost every closed runway and closed taxiway you will ever brief.
The name is historical rather than descriptive. It does not mean the notice is about somewhere distant — it means the notice is distributed widely, as opposed to the old Local (L) NOTAMs that were held at the local flight service station.
What does a NOTAM (D) cover?
NOTAM (D) notices report conditions at an airport or on a navigation facility. In practice they cover:
| Subject | What you will see |
|---|---|
| Runways | Closures, displaced thresholds, reduced declared distances, surface condition and works in progress |
| Taxiways | Full or partial closures, restricted wingspan, works in progress, unserviceable centreline lighting |
| Aprons and ramps | Stands out of use, construction equipment, closed gates and access routes |
| Lighting | Approach lighting, PAPI and VASI, runway edge and threshold lights out of service |
| Obstacles | Cranes, temporary structures and unlit obstructions near the field |
| Navigation aids | ILS, VOR, DME and NDB outages affecting the airport |
| Services | Tower and approach hours, fuel, rescue and firefighting category changes |
What a NOTAM (D) does not do is change a published procedure. An amended approach minimum or a temporary flight restriction is regulatory and arrives as an FDC NOTAM instead.
Why closed taxiways are NOTAM (D) notices
If you have ever asked which type of NOTAM is issued for a closed taxiway, the answer is a NOTAM (D). A closure is a physical fact about the airport surface, reported by the airport, distributed to everyone who might fly there — which is precisely the definition of the D series.
This is also where the volume lives. A large airport under construction can produce dozens of surface notices in a single package, most of which have nothing to do with your routing. The hard part is not decoding any one of them; it is not missing the one that matters. That is the problem TaxiwayClosed AI is built around: it reads the whole package and marks each closed taxiway and runway with a cross on the airport diagram, so the closures are a picture before they are a reading exercise.
For what the closure looks like on the ground once you are taxiing, see taxiway closure markers and closed runway markings.
A NOTAM (D) decoded line by line
A taxiway closure at Seattle–Tacoma (KSEA), as it appears in a package:
!SEA 08/114 SEA TWY J BTN TWY A AND TWY G CLSD 2608260500-2608291700
Reading it in order:
!SEA— the accountable location, here Seattle–Tacoma.08/114— the notice number: the 114th notice issued at this location in August.SEA— the affected facility.TWY J BTN TWY A AND TWY G— the subject and its extent. Taxiway J, but only between taxiways A and G. Partial closures are extremely common and the extent is the part most often skimmed.CLSD— closed.2608260500-2608291700— the window in year-month-day-hour-minute UTC: from 26 August 05:00Z until 29 August 17:00Z.
Short, contracted, and entirely physical. This is the kind of notice that becomes a cross on an airport diagram. The shorthand — TWY, BTN, CLSD, WIP — is listed in full on our NOTAM abbreviations page.
NOTAM (D) and Local (L) NOTAMs
Older training material and older exam questions still refer to Local (L) NOTAMs as a separate category covering taxiway closures, ramp conditions and similar local information. That category was folded into NOTAM (D) as part of the modernisation of the United States NOTAM system, so a current briefing will not present L notices separately.
If a question or a textbook offers both, the modern answer is that the information now travels as a NOTAM (D). It is worth knowing the older term exists, because it turns up in study material that has not been revised.
For the full set of categories in current use — D, FDC, pointer, SAA, military and international — see types of NOTAMs.
Frequently asked questions about notam (d)
What does the D stand for in NOTAM (D)?
The D stands for Distant. A NOTAM (D) is an airport or facility notice distributed beyond the local area so that pilots planning a flight from anywhere can see it.
What is a NOTAM (D)?
A NOTAM (D) is the airport and facility category of notice. It reports physical conditions such as closed runways and taxiways, unserviceable lighting, obstacles, navigation aid outages and changes to airport services.
Which type of NOTAM is issued for a closed taxiway?
A closed taxiway is normally issued as a NOTAM (D). A closure is a physical condition at the airport, which is exactly what the D series reports.
What is the difference between a NOTAM (D) and an FDC NOTAM?
A NOTAM (D) describes a physical condition at an airport. An FDC NOTAM is regulatory and changes something in the published or charted record, such as an instrument approach minimum or a temporary flight restriction.
Are Local (L) NOTAMs still used?
No. Local NOTAMs were folded into NOTAM (D) as part of the modernisation of the United States NOTAM system. The term still appears in older training material, but a current briefing will not present them as a separate category.
Does a NOTAM (D) change an approach procedure?
No. Changes to instrument approach procedures, charted data and airspace restrictions are regulatory and are issued as FDC NOTAMs instead.
Always verify with official sources
TaxiwayClosed AI is an awareness and training aid — it is not an official briefing and is never a substitute for one. Before any real flight, pull the current package from official sources such as FAA NOTAM Search, review the procedures in the FAA JO 7930.2 NOTAM order and in SKYbrary, use your approved EFB briefing, and confirm anything unclear with ATC, dispatch, or your CFI.
How this page is written and reviewed
Last reviewed . Written and maintained by the ETWINTECH LTD team that builds TaxiwayClosed AI. Definitions and procedures on this page are checked against FAA publications and SKYbrary; where they differ from anything here, the official source governs. ETWINTECH LTD is not an aviation authority and this page is not official guidance — see our data sources and limitations and safety advice. Spotted an error? Email contact@etwintech.com.
See the closures instead of reading for them
Download TaxiwayClosed AI, load a real NOTAM package, and let the AI pull the NOTAM (D) surface closures out and mark each closed taxiway and runway with a cross on the airport diagram.
Awareness and training aid only. Always verify with official NOTAM briefings, current charts, approved EFBs, ATC, dispatch, and company procedures before any real operation.