On 22 December 2018, a Boeing 747-400 crew began to climb from FL310 without clearance and prescribed separation was lost against both an opposite direction Boeing 777-300 at FL 320 and another same direction Boeing 777-300 cleared to fly at FL330. The Investigation found that the 747 crew had requested FL 390 and then misunderstood the controller’s response of “level available 350” as a clearance to climb and gave a non-standard response and began to climb when the controller responded instructing the flight to standby for higher. Controller attempts to resolve the resultant ‘current conflict warnings’ were only partially successful.