India planning to have only one air traffic management from Nagpur: Officials | Latest News India

New Delhi: The government of India has begun working to have one Indian Single Sky Harmonised (ISHAN) air traffic management (ATM) from Nagpur with an aim to reduce carbon footprint, enhance safety, and aircraft fuel usage, three officials close to the development said on Thursday. The move has been in discussions for the past at least five months, they said.

India has four flight information regions (FIRs) – Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai and a sub-FIR in Guwahati. The Nagpur air traffic control is located in the central part of the country and the government is planning the move to unify all four, said officials.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which manages the Indian air space has asked for a detailed project report (DPR) to study the technology needed and available in the country for implementing ISHAN, one of the officials mentioned above said.

Another official close to the development said that the implementation of the harmonisation of FIRs would be beneficial to the country in all ways. “Having a harmonised ATM is a win-win situation for all. This is because it will not only enhance safety, reduce pollution, fuel, and time but also reduce the workload of the air traffic controllers,” an AAI official said.

“If this plan is implemented, the air traffic controllers of every area control would not be required to coordinate for domestic flights flying above 25,000 ft (flights in the upper airspace) as they would all be handled by Air traffic controllers (ATCOs) in Nagpur. The ATCOs in every region or airport would then only work to guide the flights approaching or taking off from an airport until it enters the upper space which is referred to as ‘Area control’ in aviation parlance,” an AAI official said.

A former AAI official said the concept is already in use in Chennai and Kolkata where the Chennai area controllers handle flights of Bangalore, Trichy and Hyderabad and Kolkata area controllers handle flights of Bhubaneswar and Varanasi.

“The government’s plan to harmonise ATMs will ensure that the system will have an alternative. This means that in case of any untoward incident like hijack or natural calamity when the systems in Nagpur cannot be used, a backup available at individual airports can be used,” he added.

“Currently, there are no alternatives to deal with such an emergency and hence ISHAN will be a much-needed step in Indian airspace,” the official said.

A second former official, however, said, “Though the idea to have harmonised ATMs from Nagpur is a welcome move and is the need of the hour considering the rapid growth we are seeing, it might not go well with ATCOs across the regions except in the Mumbai controllers.”

On being asked the reason for it, the official said, “All controllers except in Mumbai are localities and would not be easily convinced to change their location.”

Speaking to HT, a Mumbai-based controller said, “We are eagerly waiting for the change to be implemented. This is because at least 80% of us hail from different parts of the country and find it expensive to sustain in the city.”

“We have been asking our regional heads to at least implement the change in the western FIR. This is because we fear that the ATCOs across the country would not be convinced to shift their base,” he added.

“We are ready to move to Nagpur provided the controllers have a well-maintained place to live,” a Delhi-based ATCO concluded.