GCAA and PRISMA Setting New Standards in the Middle East

On 28 February 2013, the Sheikh Zayed Air Navigation Centre of UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA ) has successfully taken Arrival Manager System (AMAN) into operation. With the first operational AMAN in the Middle East region GCAA prepares itself for the future growth of air traffic in the heavily congested airspace over the UAE.

The new AMAN system is a part of COMSOFT’s modular ATM automation system PRISMA, installed at the Sheikh Zayed Air Navigation Centre (SZC). The AMAN is being used to arrange arrivals of aircrafts into a safe, smooth and efficient air traffic flow for the arrivals to Dubai International Airport.

The AMAN is specifically designed to provide electronic assistance in metering and sequencing arrivals streams of traffic to particular points, such as arrival gates or runway thresholds. The planning and sequencing function of the AMAN also aims at enhancing safety by reducing controller workload and improving the situational awareness, particularly in cases such as bad weather, runway closures and missed approaches.

The Executive Director of Air Navigation Services and Chairman of the National Airspace Advisory Committee, Mr. Ahmed Al Jallaf, commented on the achievement: "The AMAN implementation is a very good example of cooperation between GCAA, Dubai Air Navigation Services and Dubai Airport. This will definitely be a model for unconditional cooperation between the units for the well-being of the country."

The AMAN opts for optimized use of the available resources to reduce delay for arriving traffic and minimizes the impact on the environment by reducing holding and low-level vectoring. The news of implementing AMAN was well received by environmentalists as such step will reduce the aircraft holding resulting in less fuel burn and therefore less CO² emissions.

The PRISMA AMAN function has been designed and optimized by the COMSOFT team in close cooperation with GCAA’s air traffic controllers. Available as a new module of PRISMA ATM automation system the functionality readily integrates with the GCAA’s PRISMA release in operation at the SZC, offering an integrated presentation of air situation and AMAN advisories.

PRISMA stands for a modular ATM automation system for En-Route, Major Terminal Area, Approach Units and ATC Towers. Its modular architecture guarantees scalability and high performance as well as flexible adaptation to the operational environments.