ERA was awarded a contract to install its WAM system to cover the TMA of Sulaimaniyah Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan

ERA (a member of OMNIPOL group) announced that it had been awarded a contract to implement a WAM and ATM system covering the Terminal Manoeuvring Area of Sulaimaniyah International Airport in Kurdistan, an autonomous region of the Republic of Iraq. ERA will deliver a composite multilateration and ADS-B system for surveillance of aircraft approaching the airport, covering the lower flight level to an extension of 50 NM.

ERA won the tender and will supply eight ground stations of its tried and tested MSS (Multi-sensor Surveillance System) and the ATM system ERIS. The contract was signed by the prime contractor, the company Waypoint and Kurdistan Regional Government in December 2017 as a result of a tendering process organized by the end user - Sulaimaniyah International Airport.

“This is an important project which ensures that Sulaimaniyah International Airport has the best available technology. The newly implemented multilateration system will operate independently without any support of traditional radar and is hereby a full-fledged replacement for the procedural air traffic management used until now,” stated Mr. Taher Abdallah, Director of Sulaimaniyah airport.

MSS by ERA is a modular system easily adaptable to any terminal and wide area requirements as well as all terrain challenges. Due to their resistance to adverse weather conditions, low power consumption and their minimal impact on the environment, the WAM sensors can be easily mounted in the Kurdistan mountains and will therefore be able to cover the TMA of the airport, which is located in the middle of the valley.

The team of ERA experts carried out a site survey and chose appropriate locations for the stations in January 2018. The Factory Acceptance Tests are planned for June 2018. The new equipment will be installed at the end of the year and is supposed to become operational in the first quarter of 2019.

SulaimaniyahInternational Airport is a new airport established in 2005, located 15 kilometres outside the city of Sulaimaniyah, in Iraqi Kurdistan and has three terminals.

Kurdistan, literally "homeland of the Kurds" or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo-cultural region where the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population and where their language, culture and national identity have historically been based. It encompasses the north-west Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges. Current use of the term refers to the following areas: south-east Turkey, northern Iraq, north-west Iran and northern Syria. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed within the Federal Republic of Iraq in 2005.