Muscat: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) hosted the 20th meeting of the Middle East Regional Air Traffic Monitoring Agency (MIDRMA) on Monday, which was held in cooperation with the Regional Office of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the Regional Air Traffic Monitoring Agency for the Middle East.
The meeting discussed technical topics, including the responsibilities and tasks of evaluating the performance of air navigation in the Middle East region, providing the necessary information on the program to reduce the minimum vertical separation between aircraft, in addition to monitoring safety levels at the horizontal level of aircraft flight to reduce the safe distance separating aircraft vertically.
Eng. Naif bin Ali al Abri, chairman, of CAA, said, "Monitoring and coordinating air traffic is an indispensable priority, especially in light of the continuous growth in air traffic and the increasing demand for flights, and that the Civil Aviation Authority pays great attention to enhancing the efficiency of procedures and achieving full coordination between member states in a way that contributes to enhancing the security and safety of air traffic in line with the international standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The Middle East Regional Air Traffic Monitoring Agency was established in 2005, with the membership of the countries of the ICAO regional region in the Middle East, and is headquartered in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
It is managed by a specialized team to perform all the agency’s tasks, such as preparing studies and periodic reports related to systems analysis, operational safety risk data for all regions, and flight information in the countries of the Middle East region, within the framework of implementing ICAO’s standards for vertical separation between aircraft.
his meeting has been held periodically since 2003, when the vertical distance between aircraft was changed to increase the airspace’s capacity for a larger number of aircraft between flight level FL290 (29,000 feet) and FL410 (41,000 feet), from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet (equivalent to 600 meters to 300 meters).
This reduction allows for an increase in the number of aircraft that can fly safely in a certain volume of airspace.
The tasks of the Middle East Regional Air Traffic Monitoring Agency are to establish and maintain a central register of State-specific VSR approvals for operators and aircraft using airspace in the Middle East where VSR standards are applied, to carry out “approval” status checks for aircraft operating in VSR airspace, to identify non-approved operators and aircraft using VSR airspace and to notify the relevant States and other monitoring agencies as necessary.
To establish a database containing the results of monitoring altitude-keeping performance and all cases of altitude deviations of 300 feet or more in Middle East airspace, in addition to including the results of requests from the Middle East Regional Air Traffic Monitoring Agency from operators and States for information explaining the reasons for significant altitude deviations to provide updated information on changes in the monitoring status of aircraft type classification to national authorities and operators.
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