Despite the fact that 800 million pesos were allocated in the Federation’s Expenditure Budget for the implementation of the PBN in the metropolitan system of three airports, there are doubts that were not fully resolved, considers Pablo Casas Lías, director of the National Research Institute Aeronautical Law (INIJA)
“The redesign studies in the case of NavBlue were never fully and officially presented,” said the specialist, referring to the Airbus subsidiary company, in charge of analyzing the new airspace. “They intend to make a new redesign that will integrate two more airports, but we see that not even the AICM can handle the movement of arrival and departure routes without actually having operations in the AIFA or in Toluca.”
In the statement issued last week, IFALPA warned that the problem was the lack of training to operate under the new airspace. For Alfredo Covarrubias, general secretary of the National Union of Air Traffic Controllers (Sinacta), it is precisely in this area where there have been several gaps.
“The implementation of new procedures must be accompanied by adequate training. If, for example, you are going to handle a new program on a non-commercial computer, the person who sold it to you must give you instructions,” explains the specialist. “Imagine now an aviation program, that by modifying how the airlines are distributed in the air, the inconveniences that can be.”
However, even with adequate training, specialists agree that each airport has its particularities, and this is the case of AIFA the one that worries about giving pilots little room for maneuver in case of emergency in approach operations.
“(The traces of the airspace, of the arrivals and departures of the planes) they made them as if they were a video game. With precise, exact lines, when in real life the pilots have to make deviations. The barometric values are also different”, the secretary of Sinacta told the media yesterday.
Hence, although it would not be necessary to reverse the implementation of the new air space completely, revising it would give the airlines greater certainty of operating in the airports of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico.
“When KLM, Lufthansa, Iberia or Emirates come, they will know that they will be able to fly in Mexican airspace, to the AICM or another airport, because everything will be properly integrated by PBN navigation, which has become an international standard” , concludes Casas Lias.