US shows way out of choked Indian airports

NEW DELHI: The US is coming to the aid of passengers fed up with hovering over choked Indian airports like Delhi and Mumbai. American aerospace major Boeing recently shared its expertise with authorities in Delhi on more effective utilization of airspace by allowing planes to safely fly closer at congested airports and enable faster touchdowns.

India has decided to start switching over to the new system by early July and in first phase it will be done at the three most congested airports at Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedebad. The actual reduction will take place once all stakeholders-pilots, ATCs and airports-are trained for the system in a few months.

Boeing's presentation, made at the behest of DGCA and AAI, came just as an eight-member team of US's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finished its tour of India and also as an American consulting company, Maitre Corp, gave its final report on "performance based navigation'" that would allow reducing separation from eight to five nautical miles between planes approaching to land at congested places.

Armed with Maitre report, which has been circulated to all airlines, and Boeing's knowhow on how to actually implement the same, India is planning to start switching over to the new system by early July.

''One of the early things happening under the aviation cooperation programme between India and US is that Maitre has finalized its report for better effective management of airspace at Delhi and Mumbai. The report, a roadmap for that, has been given to AAI and DGCA. The AAI will start implementing new procedures in a month,'' said aviation secretary Ashok Chawla.

Boeing, which has considerable experience of e-enabling planes, gave its knowhow on performance-based navigation. ''The new procedures will help fix planes' position visa-vis ground with radio signals using satellites and ground radars. It will help navigate planes at closer distance in both difficult terrain or congested airspace. It is similar to using technology to help planes land using instrument landing system category II or III. All this will help planes fly safely at much lesser separation than currently maintained," said an official.