Qatar’s first ever airspace has been established in full following the successful conclusion of the second stage of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) plan, on Wednesday.
In a historic verdict for aviation in the Middle East, the United Nations special agency for aviation ICAO agreed last year to establish a brand new, first-ever airspace for Qatar known as the “Doha FIR” — redrawing the skies of the world’s airspace map for the first time in decades.
The ICAO is the UN agency with the jurisdiction to delegate which country is responsible for the operational control of a specific ‘flight information region’, which is known in the industry as a ‘FIR’ – effectively, an airspace area on the map of the skies, aviation analyst Alex Macheras penned for Doha News last year.
It’s a milestone for Qatar, as there are no examples in the modern history of the airspace map of the world changing to include a country that had no airspace (FIR) of its own.
With a new FIR of its own, Qatar has gained much-needed airspace independence, and the country will have the ability to maximise the efficiency of air travel around Qatar to better meet the country’s air travel sustainability goals. Qatar will further benefit from overflight fees paid by other airlines for using its airspace – which is common practice in aviation.
For decades, the skies above the Middle East were disproportionally divided. Whilst most regions on earth have airspace split up equally among countries, airspace in the Gulf is unusually shaped. Bahrain has held control of most of the airspace above the Gulf with its ‘Bahrain FIR’ that stretches from Kuwait, across the Gulf, to the bordering FIR of the United Arab Emirates.
Airspace in the region had previously been determined based on where military radars had been installed, and with a history of good, ‘brotherly’ relations between Qatar and Bahrain, (both being Gulf Co-operation Council countries and being members of ICAO’s Transit Agreement, which permits freedom of the skies), Qatar had agreed for Bahrain to continue to control and manage its disproportionally large area of airspace.
Back then, it was also acknowledged that Bahrain would continue to profit from overflight fees (the fees airlines must pay for passing through a country’s airspace) of one of the busiest transit areas in the world.
In 2017, the sudden blockade on Qatar pushed the unusual distribution of airspace in the Gulf into the spotlight for the very first time. Whilst the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt joined Bahrain in announcing the immediate closure of their airspaces to all Qatari registered aircraft (found later to be a breach of ICAO’s Chicago Convention), the announcement of the closure of Bahrain’s airspace had been the most critical for Qatar.
Recognising the risk of having skies controlled by another country, in 2018 Qatar accelerated its formal proposal to the ICAO for the establishment of its airspace in what would become known as the Doha FIR.
Following years of technical assessments, hearings and council sessions, the organisation’s council has worked with technical teams to outline, facilitate, draw the coordinates of a Doha FIR and finally: implement the airspace in two separate phases.
Reflecting on the completion of the final phase of the implementation of the Doha FIR, Qatar’s Minister of Transport HE Jassim bin Saif al-Sulaiti said he appreciated the efforts of the ICAO Council and thanked member states along with the civil aviation authority, technical teams, and Qatari aviation sector stakeholders who contributed to the successful implementation of Qatar’s first ever airspace.
