Narrative:

While passenger boarding in lga first officer contacted lga clearance delivery for flight's clearance and was instructed to wait for our sequence to come up. While waiting for clearance delivery's response; first officer input the flight plan route printed on release. This route was lga.eliot.ext.rav.J64.bdf.J26.irk.... Approx 4 minutes later; lga clearance delivery calls our callsign and gives us a 'full-route clearance: LGA2..left turn to 360deg..radar vectors to eliot..J80.spi...' first officer had trouble understanding the clearance delivery's first part of the instructions regarding the 360 heading and queried the controller; received a better transmission of the verbiage; and repeated it to controller. Controller replied 'readback correct.' first officer then read the present ATIS weather and (newly received) clearance to captain; pointing out the LGA2 departure off of runway 4 as well as the 360 heading that was assigned. While reading this information to captain; operations agent and flight attendants in forward galley area were having a conversation about the passenger count and the gate agent hands flight deck crew paperwork showing passenger count and baggage load. This distraction took away from first officer's attention; causing first officer to forget to make the adjustment to the flight plan route in the FMS. Now in cruise at FL360; center controller contacts us in-flight and asks for our last clearance. Pilot not flying reads back LGA2.radarvectors eliot.J80.spi.... Controller then responds that we made a right turn after reaching etx VOR but we should have made a left like J80 entails; gives us a 'heading to take until back on J80 to spi'. Pilot not flying (first officer); and pilot flying (captain) then look at each other and discuss what happened and how it needed to be corrected. Pilot flying retrieves high enroute chart and comments to pilot not flying where we went wrong. Controller then interrupts the conversation and tells us to advise when ready to copy our new clearance: 'present position air.J80.spi....' pilot flying put the new routing into FMS; pilot not flying verified it; pilot flying activated it. Pilot not flying apologized to controller for our error and nothing about incident is brought up again by ATC. The first officer must be more attentive to making necessary changes to the FMS/clearance changes. First officer being more adamant about having other pilot verify all routing; whether getting changes to filed/received clearances.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier crew was given a full reroute clearance prior to departure. Because of distractions from the cabin crew the entire route was not entered in the FMC resulting in a track deviation at cruise altitude.

Narrative: While passenger boarding in LGA First Officer contacted LGA Clearance Delivery for flight's clearance and was instructed to wait for our sequence to come up. While waiting for Clearance Delivery's response; First Officer input the flight plan route printed on release. This route was LGA.ELIOT.EXT.RAV.J64.BDF.J26.IRK.... Approx 4 minutes later; LGA Clearance Delivery calls our callsign and gives us a 'full-route clearance: LGA2..Left Turn to 360deg..Radar Vectors to ELIOT..J80.SPI...' First Officer had trouble understanding the Clearance Delivery's first part of the instructions regarding the 360 heading and queried the controller; received a better transmission of the verbiage; and repeated it to controller. Controller replied 'readback correct.' First Officer then read the present ATIS weather and (newly received) clearance to Captain; pointing out the LGA2 Departure off of Runway 4 as well as the 360 heading that was assigned. While reading this information to Captain; Operations Agent and Flight Attendants in forward galley area were having a conversation about the passenger count and the gate agent hands flight deck crew paperwork showing passenger count and baggage load. This distraction took away from First Officer's attention; causing First Officer to forget to make the adjustment to the flight plan route in the FMS. Now in cruise at FL360; Center Controller contacts us in-flight and asks for our last clearance. Pilot not flying reads back LGA2.RadarVectors ELIOT.J80.SPI.... Controller then responds that we made a right turn after reaching ETX VOR but we should have made a left like J80 entails; gives us a 'heading to take until back on J80 to SPI'. Pilot not flying (First Officer); and pilot flying (Captain) then look at each other and discuss what happened and how it needed to be corrected. Pilot flying retrieves high enroute chart and comments to pilot not flying where we went wrong. Controller then interrupts the conversation and tells us to advise when ready to copy our new clearance: 'present position AIR.J80.SPI....' Pilot flying put the new routing into FMS; pilot not flying verified it; pilot flying activated it. Pilot not flying apologized to Controller for our error and nothing about incident is brought up again by ATC. The First Officer must be more attentive to making necessary changes to the FMS/Clearance changes. First Officer being more adamant about having other pilot verify all routing; whether getting changes to filed/received clearances.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.