Middle East Air Nav Meeting Held

The General Civil Aviation Authority of UAE (GCAA) hosted the first meeting of MIDANPIRG Steering group on July 1-3, 2008, in Dubai. The meeting was organized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Middle East Regional Office. It is comprised of eight member states (Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and UAE). The meeting discussed ways and means to increase the efficiency and alleviate deficiencies in the air navigation fields such as air traffic management and communication and navigation and surveillance in light of the rapid growth of air traffic within Middle East region. The attendees addressed the global, inter and intra regional activities related to aviation infrastructure and implementation of new navigation concept called Performance Based Navigation (PBN), which will require significant amount of planning and technical assistance to Middle East states to enable them to develop PBN implementation plans based on a regional strategy. The members will also review and endorse the outcome of the different MIDANPIRG subsidiary bodies’ activities for the last twelve months and will conduct a review of the progress achieved for the implementation of the Global Plan initiatives in the Middle East. The agenda of the meeting included the review of the progress made and the difficulties encountered by the Middle East Regional Monitoring Agency (MID RMA) for the development of the MID RVSM Safety Monitoring Report (SMR 2008).