Current Affairs - Business - Discussion

A statutory body working under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Airports Authority of India(AAI) has signed MoU (memorandum of understanding) with Aireon, USA, a global aircraft tracking body, for implementation of Space-Based Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast data (ADS-B) services for the oceanic regions of the Indian flight information regions (FIRs). The agreement was signed by Mansoor Ahmed of Airports Authority of India and Don Thoma, President and CEO, Aireon. The MoU provides AAI surveillance coverage of regions in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, representing 6 million sq km. The present surveillance technology covers only terrestrial airspace and has limited coverage over oceanic regions. But the ADS-B services will provide the real-time surveillance of airplanes over oceans falling in Indian Airspace. The estimated cost for provisioning of these services is Rs.114 crores per year. The AAI plans to start trial operations of these services from January 2020.