Systems and methods for processing flight information. Using a flight plan/route message and other flight information (aircraft type and navigation database information), the portion of the message containing the flight plan or route is decoded and translated to construct a ground-based flight route comprising a list of waypoints and associated flight information. The list of waypoints may then used in calculations performed by a flight trajectory predictor to identify spatially associated weather information and/or to create an updated flight plan or route (e.g., by adding or changing waypoints in a flight object) and thereafter transmit that information to users. Prior to transmitting any updated flight plan/route, the associated waypoints and other flight information must be translated and encoded into the required format for inclusion in an outgoing (i.e., uplinked) flight plan/route message.