A system and method for providing to a user a candidate list of flight plans that specify one or more planned routes of flight from one location to another location, such routes satisfying certain criteria. These criteria include ranking the candidate list of flight plans according to the probability that the flight plan may be allowed or cleared by a controlling authority based on historic cleared flight plans; further qualifying this list by considering only candidate flight plans cleared during specified weather conditions; or specified time periods; or requested speed and/or altitude and/or aircraft type of flight parameters. Various embodiments include providing the candidate list of flight plans to the user by means of a communication system that is composed of a combination of a wide-area network, a wireless network or the internet. Additionally, an embodiment includes providing the flight plan data to a global positioning system (GPS) of a user.