Oman all set for New ICAO flight plan

Like other ANSPs around the world, DGMAN must be ready for the transition to ICAOs New flight plan format on 15 November 2012, in accordance with ICAO Doc 4444, Amendment 1. To help ANSPs make the transition smoothly and recognizing that many existing end systems such as flight data processing systems will still not be compliant to the new format, COMSOFT has developed AIDA-FPL to resolve the issue of non-interoperability between the two formats. The bi-directional converter allows ANSPs to use both the Present and New format in parallel and convert from one to the other.

The AIDA-FPL converter was deployed as a software upgrade of the AFTN/AMHS/AIS system in Muscat which was supplied by COMSOFT in 2008 and has been operating since then to DGMANs full satisfaction.

DGMANs project manager, Abdullah Al Shaaili, commented: "Oman Civil Aviation Authority and COMSOFT have successfully completed the upgrading of the AFTN/AMHS/AIS system to comply with ICAO requirements. Oman CAA awarded the upgrading contract to COMSOFT due to the extensive experience it has in AFTN/AMHS/AIS systems. With respect to the project execution, Al Shaaili added: Software implementation and system upgrade went very well and currently Oman CAA message system is now compliant with ICAO New FPL requirement. The upgrading project had been completed on time by COMSOFT which proves the reliability of COMSOFT software in message handling systems."

A large number of ANSPs worldwide is already using COMSOFTs flight plan converter so as to save the enormous investment costs due when upgrading all national flight planning end systems to the New flight plan format. AIDA-FPL can be deployed either as a standalone appliance or as a software module for COMSOFTs market-leading AMHS/AFTN node AIDA-NG.