Narrative:

During my last trip; we flew a leg out of albuquerque. The initial filed portion of our route was for the mnzno one departure with the txo transition. Abq was departing runway 8. The pre departure clearance matched our flight plan and cleared us to climb and maintain 9;000 feet MSL expecting our filed altitude within five minutes. We armed LNAV on the ground and took off with autothrottles. We were switched to departure shortly after takeoff. On initial contact with departure we were cleared to climb via the mnzno one. After engaging the autopilot and cleaning up; we armed VNAV and initially set 11;500 feet MSL in the altitude window. We then further reviewed the chart and set FL200 in the altitude window to comply with the routing instructions which are spelled out after initial climb but not visually depicted on the plan view of the departure.just after we figured all that out we were given a vector off the SID at center request. At that point we confirmed the vector and the altitude we were climbing to. The controller verified the altitude and said; 'hey; did your company brief you guys on this new procedure?' we got into a bit of discussion and the controller said some of our crews (given the climb via clearance) are stopping the climb at 9;000 feet MSL which is bad since there is terrain to the east. Most of our crews are stopping the climb at 11;500 feet MSL (the next depicted altitude on the plan view). He said very few crews make it to FL200 without prompting. I feel like we briefed this procedure pretty well on the ground; but I must admit we missed briefing the top of the climb at FL200. We caught it in the air after setting 11;500 feet MSL in the altitude window and rereading the chart because we felt 11;500 feet MSL was a strange altitude. I realize RNAV climbs are going to be 'procedures of the future' and this exercise made me even more [aware of the need] to read the procedure all the way to the bottom. I know that we emphasize briefing the departure procedure and we did this on this departure. The thing that sticks out about this event is the rarity of the final altitude on the SID for the climb via not being visually depicted on the plan view. You must read all the way to the bottom of the procedure after the initial climb to see ATC expects FL200 in the routing section. I think this is the first time I have seen this kind of clearance. It is extremely rare to actually fly the entire initial climb and routing description without an intervening clearance of some type. I am not used to doing it. On this SID there is the real possibility of impacting terrain if you screw up the altitudes. I think there is a teaching point here that can be made to pilots in flight ops. I also believe there could be better visual depiction on the plan view of what ATC wants like a climb and maintain flag after mnzno. Our crew managed to make it through this procedure without prompting or actual ATC error but the potential did exist for us to screw it up.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737-700 First Officer reported confusion regarding the waypoint altitude restrictions on the MNZNO RNAV SID out of ABQ. Departure advised that other flight crews had failed to comply with the restrictions and wondered if there had been adequate communication from their company as to the procedures requirements.

Narrative: During my last trip; we flew a leg out of Albuquerque. The initial filed portion of our route was for the MNZNO ONE Departure with the TXO transition. ABQ was departing Runway 8. The PDC matched our flight plan and cleared us to climb and maintain 9;000 feet MSL expecting our filed altitude within five minutes. We armed LNAV on the ground and took off with autothrottles. We were switched to Departure shortly after takeoff. On initial contact with departure we were cleared to climb via the MNZNO ONE. After engaging the autopilot and cleaning up; we armed VNAV and initially set 11;500 feet MSL in the altitude window. We then further reviewed the chart and set FL200 in the altitude window to comply with the routing instructions which are spelled out after initial climb but not visually depicted on the plan view of the departure.Just after we figured all that out we were given a vector off the SID at Center request. At that point we confirmed the vector and the altitude we were climbing to. The Controller verified the altitude and said; 'Hey; did your Company brief you guys on this new procedure?' We got into a bit of discussion and the Controller said some of our Crews (given the climb via clearance) are stopping the climb at 9;000 feet MSL which is bad since there is terrain to the east. Most of our Crews are stopping the climb at 11;500 feet MSL (the next depicted altitude on the plan view). He said very few Crews make it to FL200 without prompting. I feel like we briefed this procedure pretty well on the ground; but I must admit we missed briefing the top of the climb at FL200. We caught it in the air after setting 11;500 feet MSL in the altitude window and rereading the chart because we felt 11;500 feet MSL was a strange altitude. I realize RNAV climbs are going to be 'procedures of the future' and this exercise made me even more [aware of the need] to read the procedure all the way to the bottom. I know that we emphasize briefing the departure procedure and we did this on this departure. The thing that sticks out about this event is the rarity of the final altitude on the SID for the climb via NOT being visually depicted on the plan view. You must read all the way to the bottom of the procedure after the initial climb to see ATC expects FL200 in the Routing section. I think this is the first time I have seen this kind of clearance. It is extremely rare to actually fly the entire initial climb and routing description without an intervening clearance of some type. I am not used to doing it. On this SID there is the real possibility of impacting terrain if you screw up the altitudes. I think there is a teaching point here that can be made to Pilots in Flight Ops. I also believe there could be better visual depiction on the plan view of what ATC wants like a climb and maintain flag after MNZNO. Our Crew managed to make it through this procedure without prompting or actual ATC error but the potential did exist for us to screw it up.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 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.