Cutting down flight delays: India gets new centralised air traffic flow management system

NEW DELHI: India now has a state-of-the-art “air traffic flow management - central command centre” (C-ATFM) that will help balance capacity against demand for optimum utilisation of resources like airspace and aircraft at capacity-constrained Indian airports. Most airports in India are facing a massive infra crunch with terminals handling much more passengers than their capacity and this system is expected to cut down on flight delays by synchronising aircraft movement with real time conditions.

India has now become the seventh country to have a centralised air traffic flow management system. This should help ease up conditions at airports with maximum infra shortage — Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore — and other terminals like Patna and Lucknow which are fast becoming new pain points for flyers.

“The C-ATFM system integrates flight data from various subsystems like ATC Automation System, flight updates and flight update messages. The system also displays weather information along with static information about airports, airspaces and air routes. It processes the demand and capacity information and provides decision-making tools to the ATFM flow manager for collaborative decision making and to ensure regulated flow of traffic at each airport in India,” Airports Authority of India (AAI) said in a statement about the centre that was inaugurated by aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri at Vasant Kunj, Delhi, on Saturday.

“The C-ATFM system is supported by 36 Flow Management Positions (FMP) at various airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad among others. Eight defence airports are also part of the ATFM network which are provided with FMPs. After successfully implementing the Air Traffic Flow Management System, India has become the seventh country after the US, Europe, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Brazil,” said the AAI statement.

AAI chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said: “With the commissioning of the Central Command Centre of the Central Air Traffic Flow Management Complex, we have made a humble beginning today. With this facility, in the next five years, we will be comparable to what the best of the world have to offer.”