ANDREW DOYLE / SINGAPORE
Subject to permission from the US military, commercial overflights could resume soon if infrastructure is sound
Efforts are under way to re-open Afghan airspace for commercial overflights as the US-led bombing campaign draws to a close.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that around 100 flights per day - mainly between Asia and Europe - are having to remain airborne for at least an extra 30min to avoid overflying Afghanistan, saddling airlines with much higher operating costs. The flights are having to re-route via the Gulf, where operations are already disrupted due to the non-availability of Iraqi airspace.
An IATA technical team is due to arrive in Afghanistan by 20 January to assess what damage, if any, has been done to the country's civil air traffic control (ATC) infrastructure. Gary Dennison, the organisation's assistant director operations and infrastructure Asia Pacific, says he has received reports that radio and satellite communications systems used by Kabul's ATC centre to handle overflights have survived largely intact, although they are currently inoperative.
IATA acted as project manager under contract to Afghanistan's ministry of civil aviation and tourism during the installation of the communications hardware required to establish the Kabul en-route ATC centre. The system was commissioned only a year ago and comprises four VHF radio transceivers located at Herat, Kabul, Khandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif, from which voice communications are routed to the control centre through satellite communications links via Asiasat II.
Dennison says once the system's power supply has been re-established, it may be operative within a matter of weeks. However, the resumption of commercial overflights will ultimately depend on permission from the US military which continues to conduct missions over Afghanistan.
While overflights remain suspended, the Afghan government is foregoing around $15 million worth of annual ATC fees, IATA estimates. The principal civil routes across the country are V838 and V888 from east to west, and the north/south A466D and G668 routes.
Most of Afghanistan's ground-based navigation aids such as VOR beacons were destroyed several years ago, but the vast majority of overflights are made by aircraft equipped with autonomous onboard navigation equipment.
Ariana Afghan Airlines is understood to have resumed domestic operations with a number of Antonov An-24s equipped to use the global positioning system. IATA has been awarded a contract to implement global navigation satellite system procedures in terminal airspace around Afghanistan's major airports, avoiding the need for ground-based infrastructure.
Source: Flight International
