ATC
More Middle East Commercial Traffic Could Hamper Bizav
The UAE is working on plans to enhance its air traffic management capacity.

The headlong growth of scheduled air transport in the Middle East is intensifying the challenges facing the region’s air traffic controllers and the priorities they must set themselves as business aviation goes in search of the recognition it needs to expand and prosper.

Ahmed Al Jallaf, assistant director general of the UAE’s Sheikh Zayed Air Navigation Centre, told the MEBAA conference this week that about 49 percent of the UAE’s airspace is set aside for military operations, leaving only just over half of the airspace for a growing raft of civil operations. The Middle East has various large portions of military airspace and, in his view, there is a strong need to implement the flexible use of airspace concept.