To meet the demands of a growing air traffic over the Indian sky, a high-level committee has recommended a common use of the airspace by military and civilian aircraft and an enhanced flexibility in its usage.
"As a first step, the airspace above 29,000 feet could be released for civil traffic in the presently defined restricted/danger airspace. (However) the defence requirements would have a priority of not only increasing their height requirements but also expanding the restricted airspace, whenever required," the Committee headed by former Civil Aviation Secretary Ajay Prasad said in a report.
The report was submitted to Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel in New Delhi on Tuesday. The committee was set up in March last year to formulate a Master Plan for next-generation futuristic Air Navigation Services.
The panel said both defence and civil aviation ministries had accepted flexible use of airspace as the underlying basis for optimising the use of Indian airspace for meeting both military and civil aviation needs of the country.
The report comes in the backdrop of several incidents of 'near-miss' (which does not construe an accidental situation) in the past few months with the substantial growth in traffic.
In order to provide more space to civilian air traffic, the committee felt that the IAF should review the Restricted and Danger Areas expeditiously.
While recommending a series of measures to strengthen the air traffic control system, it said that an ATC delay of more than five minutes should be considered as significant and the capacity to handle the air traffic should be determined accordingly.
The Prasad Committee also recommended that AAI should immediately review the ATC procedures being followed at various airports, especially at metro airports, and initiate action to increase the capacity of handling air traffic.
"AAI should take this as a continuous exercise" and implement the Required Area Navigation and Required Navigation Performance procedures at Mumbai and Delhi as soon as they are finalised, it said.
In case of any military reason, a notice of at least 24 hours should be given for diversion of planned civilian traffic, it said.
Regarding surveillance systems, it recommended that the AAI should operationalise Behrampur Radar immediately by using dedicated Satellite Communication System.
The AAI should also install 10 radars on priority basis to help reduce the spacing of aircraft and increase the capacity of airspace. All radars should be networked by 2008-09 and the ten new Radars should be operated from Delhi and Mumbai.
The committee recommended that AAI should consolidate airspace from the existing four Flight Information Region to two FIRs with two Area Control Centres at Delhi and Mumbai.
It also recommended that AAI speedily implement the global standards stipulated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation on air traffic flow management.
These major recommendations would now by considered by the Civil Aviation Ministry for the next course of action.
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