Narrative:

H60 sle 040 sle..cvo..lwg..cvo. After departure when the aircraft was in eug approach airspace under their control I received a time update as follows; that the message indicated 'ksle' and not 'sle' as shown in flight plan. Looking at this message it would appear that the aircraft departed sle/ksle at a different time than it actually did. I believe eram recognizes sle and ksle as interchangeable when you reroute aircraft to that destination which is a convenient feature most of the time. In this case of a departing aircraft; it would appear that eram recognized the two different identifiers as the same on one hand and differently on the other hand. 'Ksle' was never in the flight plan so I assume eram must be referencing 'sle' and 'ksle' as the same fix because of the interchangeability of the two. However; if that is in fact true; then this would be an incorrect amendment of the departure time. On the other hand if eram considers the fixes to be separate then why is ksle even being referenced in a time update when it is not in the flight plan? In any event; the departure time should not be arbitrarily updated/changed by eram. NORAC procedures are based on the departure time; the appearance of having departed after a clearance void time and a myriad of other functions which may be predicated on the actual departure time could be affected by any arbitrary change in the actual departure time. This backdating of time updates is also prevalent for fixes other than departure airports. For example; I am receiving time updates for vantz (moxee arrivals) after the aircraft has already progressed it 12 minutes prior. For these similar instances; I have already dropped the data block and am still receiving erroneous time updates for a specific fix even though the aircraft had already progressed the fix a long time ago. Recommendation; start using the 'K' prefix in association with aircraft destinations within the continental united states (conus); thereby eliminating the ambiguous usage of airport identifiers with and without the 'K' prefixes. Start working away from the interchangeability of 'K' used in conjunction with '3 alphanumeric only character' airport identifiers and just use the ICAO 'K' prefix for all conus airports. Prevent eram from providing ambiguous and/or erroneous time updates to departure airport identifiers that are eligible for this interchangeability feature.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZSE Controller listed an ERAM anomaly involving airport identifications; describing a number of consequences that result.

Narrative: H60 SLE 040 SLE..CVO..LWG..CVO. After departure when the aircraft was in EUG Approach airspace under their control I received a time update as follows; that the message indicated 'KSLE' and not 'SLE' as shown in flight plan. Looking at this message it would appear that the aircraft departed SLE/KSLE at a different time than it actually did. I believe ERAM recognizes SLE and KSLE as interchangeable when you reroute aircraft to that destination which is a convenient feature most of the time. In this case of a departing aircraft; it would appear that ERAM recognized the two different identifiers as the same on one hand and differently on the other hand. 'KSLE' was never in the flight plan so I assume ERAM must be referencing 'SLE' and 'KSLE' as the same fix because of the interchangeability of the two. However; if that is in fact true; then this would be an incorrect amendment of the departure time. On the other hand if ERAM considers the fixes to be separate then why is KSLE even being referenced in a time update when it is not in the flight plan? In any event; the departure time should not be arbitrarily updated/changed by ERAM. NORAC procedures are based on the departure time; the appearance of having departed after a clearance void time and a myriad of other functions which may be predicated on the actual departure time could be affected by any arbitrary change in the actual departure time. This backdating of time updates is also prevalent for fixes other than departure airports. For example; I am receiving time updates for VANTZ (MOXEE Arrivals) after the aircraft has already progressed it 12 minutes prior. For these similar instances; I have already dropped the Data Block and am still receiving erroneous time updates for a specific fix even though the aircraft had already progressed the fix a long time ago. Recommendation; Start using the 'K' prefix in association with aircraft destinations within the Continental United States (CONUS); thereby eliminating the ambiguous usage of airport identifiers with and without the 'K' prefixes. Start working away from the interchangeability of 'K' used in conjunction with '3 alphanumeric only character' airport identifiers and just use the ICAO 'K' prefix for all CONUS airports. Prevent ERAM from providing ambiguous and/or erroneous time updates to departure airport identifiers that are eligible for this interchangeability feature.

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.