Aviation News Item: 00742

19th May 2009

Source: ubmaviationnews.com

NATS and the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), the UK and Irish air navigation service providers, have published a three-year plan for making the management of the airspace more efficient, enhancing safety and environmental benefits. The overarching UK-Ireland Functional Airspace Block (FAB) supervisory board aims to save €12m per annum by 2013, rising to €40m per annum by 2018. One of the first initiatives is the P600 Irish Sea Airspace Change, which better aligns the airspace between the southwest of Scotland, Dublin and Northern Ireland, and which came into effect on May 7, 2009. Further initiatives include: improvements to the oceanic/domestic interface for UK and Irish traffic; removal of ATS routes from Shannon upper airspace to allow direct routing and flight planning from entry point to exit planning ; creation of "straight line" routes across Irish and UK airspace and into Europe for use by eastbound aircraft during quiet hours; a single pre-tactical process for planning the management of traffic flows; joint Irish and UK strategic rolling plan for the management of events that create extra or more complex traffic arrangements; and a common safety scheme for en-route events to measure and improve operational safety performance and to establish common safety targets.

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