AAI plans to integrate radars

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is in the process of interlinking radars of various regions to enhance air safety. Last week, Chennai became the first region to integrate radars of all major airports like Trivandrum and Cochin. The Mumbai region will be the next followed by Delhi and Kolkata. The full integration will be complete by the end of 2012, officials said. AAI officials said that the radars of Nagpur and Ahmedabad airports will be interlinked with Mumbai airport. This will not only give better coverage of flight movements to all cities but also save aviation fuel. “Usually, flights headed in the same direction are separated from each other by 10 miles. However, when they have to go out of the range of one radar to the other, the separation has to be 80 miles to prevent any mishap. Since, horizontal separation of 80 miles isn’t practically possible, they are vertically separated. Hence, many aircraft have to fly low and burn a lot of fuel in the process,” said a senior air traffic control (ATC) official. “If there are no ‘gaps’ between the Mumbai and Ahmedabad radar coverage, the planes can pass easily without any changes required in the altitude,” he added. Integration of radars will also ensure better surveillance of flights. “Currently, each city has its radars. This is why there are ‘gaps’ where the coverage of one radar ends and the other starts. These are areas where one cannot track a flight till it enters the airspace covered by the radar. Once all radars are integrated, these ‘gaps’ won’t remain. Each flight will be monitored all the time,” a senior airport official said. The coordination between controllers of different cities will be better as the aircraft position will be relayed live. Once all regions integrate the radars, a common system will be worked out to manage the flow of air traffic. “The system will highlight the progress of all flights. This will enable traffic controllers to gauge the exact position of a flight, delays and even the time they will take to reach the destination,”a senior AAI official said.