GCAA continuously striving for excellence as further three year COMSOFT contract is commissioned

Delegates from the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) recently visited COMSOFT headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany, to sign a framework contract in order to further manifest their exceptional partnership.

UAE GCAA again selected COMSOFT to enhance their existing PRISMA system, in order to handle continued air traffic growth. Further development of the service and maintenance of the Sheikh Zayed Air Navigation Centre in Abu Dhabi, with support from both sides, underline the GCAA’s satisfaction with the successful collaboration over recent years, and their intention to maintain their outstanding services.

H.E Saif Al Suwaidi, GCAA Director General said: “GCAA, as the leading ANSP in the region in terms of performance and traffic handling, is following a strict path concerning our excellent goals to achieve our strategic objective being at the forefront of aviation safety and security. Commencing the new PRISMA enhancement project is our commitment to succeed.”

Mr. Ahmed Al Jallaf, Assistant Director General for the ANSP added: “The latest advancements at the Sheikh Zayed Centre will enable GCAA to step forward into collaborative decision making to benefit from improved traffic handling and performance, increased flexibility and enhanced safety operations.”

He continued “We are confident that the new enhancements will strengthen our position to provide high level and quality safe and efficient services to our customers and strategic partners. We are currently managing about 2,200 air traffic movements per day and, with average annual growth of 7% in such a small airspace, we must continuously focus on deploying the latest technologies and enhancing our infrastructures to meet our customers’ expectations.”

GCAA has been operating a PRISMA automation system since 2009 as a response to soaring air traffic growth, and in 2010 and 2013 successfully implemented software extensions with the latest being the Arrival Manager (AMAN) function, specifically designed to deliver electronic assistance for sequencing air traffic arrivals streams to particular points, such as arrival gates or runway thresholds.

COMSOFT CEO Manfred Schmid added: “We are extremely happy to have such trust and cooperation with a very important ANSP. COMSOFT is committed to offering high performance solutions to our customers and conclusively stand by GCAA’s side to reach their challenging goals.”

With the new contract COMSOFT will implement a range of further enhancements to the PRISMA ATM system and a number of new system features to ensure more automated and accurate applications to enhance air traffic safety, reduce staff workload and manage more cost efficient operations in order to keep up with the continued pressures of their demanding airspace.

New system features will include PRISMA SDPS – Enhanced Surveillance Data Processing, improved DFLOW, SpaceMAN Arrival Director (an AMAN upgrade), Fast Traffic Simulation Tool (ITAM), Surveillance Data Plotting, Tuning Facility for STCA, and Safety Notification and Inspection Tool with Case History.

COMSOFT’s ATM automation solution PRISMA combines all modern air navigation service functions, from pre-flight planning to real-time air navigation, Approach Units and Tower Applications and can be easily expanded to fit individual customers' requirements.