"No ATIS is available; frequency change approved."

[Justin Berry 1388016]

I was planing on flying to Cleveland, and hopped on. Cleveland Center was online, so from my memory you're supposed to go to whoever is on higher up the tier if ground, tower, etc. isn't on. So, I went to them. Asked if there was any ATIS, and he said no and followed that with "frequency change approved." I had an IFR flighplan filed. Does this mean that I need to let him know I have a flightplan from Columbus to Cleveland or does it mean I need to find another frequency to get clearance?

[Bradley Grafelman]

If you were on the ground at KCMH, then the reason he told you "frequency change approved" is because you're outside of his airspace.

 

KCMH is within the Indianapolis ARTCC, not the Cleveland ARTCC.

[Justin Berry 1388016]

Makes a ton of sense now. Where can I, however, find a chart or something like this to show what ARTCC an airport is under?

[Bradley Grafelman]

Here is a link to the Enroute H-10 chart on SkyVector. I included your flight plan and also inserted a waypoint just to illustrate where you could have crossed the ARTCC boundary (in this case, 17 NM after UTTER). That boundary looks like this:

 

 

You can also use something like the AirNav page for KCMH and note the name after "ARTCC:" given under the Airport Operations heading.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

By the way -- I'm guessing the phrase you're hearing is "no *ATC* is available; frequency change approved." Approving a frequency change because no ATIS is available doesn't make sense.

[Don Desfosse]

Generally true, although I read it as a gentle hint/nudge that there was no ATC or ATIS available at his departure airport, therefore he was free to change to unicom.