Indra Modernizes In Record Time First Of Control Centers That Manage Saudi Skies
Indra said Wednesday it has successfully completed the modernization of a first air control center in Saudi Arabia in record time. This represents a great step forward in the renovation of the air traffic management infrastructure that Saudi Air Navigation Services (SANS) entrusted to Indra last June.
The control center in question is Abha, which provides approach services for aircraft landing at the airport of the same name in the south of the country. Its air controllers use the most advanced tools to guarantee maximum security and plan operations with the utmost precision. This functionality is key to avoid the airports, at which many different flights converge, becoming a bottleneck and causing delays across the network.
This first achievement allows SANS officials to familiarize themselves with the new system, which will be the same that will be implemented progressively at the two major route control centers located in Jeddah and Riyadh, the approach control center in Dammam and a score of airport towers across the country.
All of them will have Indra’s state-of-the-art technology which is currently used at more than 130 control centers and 200 towers around the globe. This makes Indra’s system the most reliable and robust on the market.
Migration to a new traffic management system is an extremely delicate operation, because the control center cannot afford to disrupt the service or jeopardize the safety of air operations at any time.
The fact that they had just five months to complete it was a major challenge for Indra’s engineers, who were committed to their client’s need to update this center’s systems immediately.
Technology to achieve business goals
In parallel, Indra team’s, coordinating with their counterparts in SANS, are working on remodeling the rest of the infrastructure, as part of a project which will run for another two and a half years.
Once it is finished, SANS will have the most advanced tools to achieve its twofold business goal: turn the country into the hub for the world’s main airlines, which will use its airports as their operations base and stopover point for routes joining Europe, Asia and Africa. At the same time, it will increase the capacity of its airports to receive more passengers, driving its tourist industry and being able to receive Muslims from all over the world who travel to Mecca.
Indra is acting as a SANS technological partner, helping to drive forward the much broader plan that the Saudi Kingdom has launched under the name Vision 2030 to diversify its economy and turn tourism into a lever for growth.