In a bid to ease air traffic congestion and ensure safety, government has decided to introduce separate flight corridors for helicopter operations at Delhi and Mumbai airports.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which has decided to introduce separate Visual Flight Route (VFR) corridors at the two airports for helicopter operations, has also asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to promulgate these routings and issue necessary notifications soon.
"The notification is likely to be issued very soon," official sources said. The notification of separate air corridors for chopper operations would also meet a long pending demand of the helicopter industry.
The DGCA had earlier asked the AAI to design the VFR helicopter routings, following which suggestions were invited from all helicopter operators. After several rounds of meetings, suggestions of the operators and the regulators were considered and the proposed routes were modified to facilitate chopper operations.
Flight trials were also conducted at both the airports under the supervision of Flight Operations Inspectors from Flight Inspection Directorate of the DGCA, following which the air corridors were finalised.
A large number of choppers operate within the Control Zone of Delhi and Mumbai airports as also from the Juhu airfield, which lies within the control zone of Mumbai, for tourism, oil exploration, corporate and business purposes, and their operations were often delayed due to air congestion.
