(EN) METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ABLATING HOLES IN AN ARTICLE ABSTRACT A method (600) of laser ablation of one or more holes (14) in an article (10) includes a step of establishing (602) an ablation characteristic. The ablation characteristic is a laser characteristic, a working zone characteristic, a cooling hole characteristic, or a synchronized machine motion characteristic. A creating step (604) creates a laser path plan for a laser beam based on the established ablation characteristic for a first working zone and a second working zone of the article. An ablating step (608) ablates the first working zone with a first ablation characteristic and afterwards ablates the second working zone with a second ablation characteristic which is different from the first ablation characteristic. [Figure 1] 20