Paul Phelan/CAIRNS
DRAMATIC TRAFFIC flow improvements, for aircraft over-flying the Calcutta area of India, are expected by September of this year. A new future air navigation systems (FANS) route for Boeing 747-400s across the country and the Bay of Bengal will ease chronic peak-hour congestion.
The new route will take FANS-1 equipped aircraft - so far only 747-400s - in an almost direct line from Bangkok, over the Andeman Islands and Bhubandeswar (inland of the Indian coast, some 400km (220nm) south-west of Calcutta). From there it will go direct to Delhi, where FANS and non-FANS traffic will merge in a modern radar environment provided by Delhi's new Raytheon secondary surveillance radar system and by VHF communications.
New Zealand Airways consulting arm, Airways Consulting, has been named prime contractor to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for system hardware and software acquisition, project management, operational support and the integration of the new technology into the existing ATC environment. Canada's CAE Electronics, as subcontractor, will supply its off-the-shelf datalink system based on New Zealand's Oceanic Control System, which is already operational in the south-west Pacific. SITA will be the satellite communications carrier.
Airlines blame the worsening nightly traffic jam over Calcutta, on the current need to funnel almost all flights on to the Calcutta-Delhi corridor, because of poor communications and navigation systems, the clustering of departures from Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore (to meet tight arrival windows in Europe), and the mix of aircraft on the route with cruising speeds, varying between M0.79 and M0.86.
India's new communications, navigation and surveillance/air- traffic management (CNS/ATM) capability will improve not only air-ground communications, but also those between ATM units, to ease traffic transfers by datalink. The FANS-1 dedicated route will separate all qualified 747-400s from non-FANS traffic.
At present, 88% of some 594 non-stop flights, which overfly Calcutta weekly are flown by aircraft, capable of being fitted with a FANS-1 package.
The initiative is likely soon to extend to the route sector in the Yangon (Myanmar) flight information region and, eventually, across Malaysia to Singapore, which is already FANS-capable.
IATA's Singapore-based Tony Laven believes that the Indian move will be a catalyst for rapid expansion of FANS capability between Asia and Europe.
"The intention is that in conjunction with India and the USA, we will be looking for an extension of this route, possibly over Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran, or also up over the Central Asian republics into Russia," Laven says.
Source: Flight International
