Dubai: Dubai Air Navigaton Services (Dans), the entity responsible for air traffic control (ATC) at Dubai’s airports, says it has transformed its operations and adopted the most advanced procedures to cope with a 50 per cent increase in aircraft movements over the last eight years.
“We have successfully redesigned the current airspace, introducing 90 new procedures and 150 new way-points in efforts to enhance airspace capacity, enable fuel savings and continuously support green aviation under the ‘Airspace Restructuring Project’ in Dubai,” stated Abdullah Al Hashmi, executive vice-president for operations at Dans, in his keynote address at the Air Traffic Control Forum, running alongside the Airport Show in Dubai.
Today, Al Hashmi said, Dans managed an average of 1,500 aircraft movements a day.
Dans’ research and development arm had developed unique Approach Peak Offload (APO) to consolidate ATC operations seamlessly, he added.
“This has enabled Dans to reduce peak arrival delay by 40 per cent, as well as reduce CO2 emissions by up to 447 tonnes on a daily basis, while continuing to enhance air traffic movement’s capacity further,” he said.
Peter Harbison, executive chairman of the Capa Centre for Aviation, said the Asia-Pacific and North American regions would see the largest fleet sizes in 2018, with narrowbody aircraft topping the list of 2018 deliveries.
The Asia-Pacific region alone would see 500 new aircraft delivered, mostly narrowbody.
George Rhodes, IATA assistant director for Safety and Flight Operations, Infrastructure for the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), said that in addition to new manned aircraft, the market for unmanned aircraft systems — drones — would keep growing as new uses for drones were found.
He discussed ways to integrate manned and unmanned aircraft in controlled airspace to ensure safe skies.
