AIDC coordination meeting held in Kunming

The Southwest and the Central South Regional Air Traffic Management Bureaus held the Kunming-Nanning Air Traffic Services Inter-facility Data Communications (AIDC) coordination meeting in Kunming on June 24.
The two agencies also signed the Kunming-Nanning technical information report and control transfer agreements, and discussed the AIDC work plan and its future development. Among those who attended the meeting were leaders and technicians of Central South’s communication and air traffic management departments, Guangxi and Yunnan branches of the ATMB, and Southwest’s communication and navigation and air traffic management departments. AIDC is a protocol for the automatic transfer of air traffic management automatic system control, recommended for use in the Asia Pacific region by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Chinese civil aviation industry standard MH2008 also defines transfer protocol between control centers. Through AIDC, automatic control transfer between different control centers can be fulfilled. Comparing with the current transfer mode that completely depends on telephone, AIDC can reduce the workload of controllers and improve control effectiveness. The Yunnan and Guangxi branches of the ATMB started the Kunming-Nanning AIDC experimental work in October last year based on the requirements of the Southwest and Central South Regional ATMBs. With the cooperation of technicians and controllers, technical problems about the communication link, protocol standards and system adaptation between the two sites were resolved. The cross-system electronic transfer from telephonics to Raytheon was fulfilled. In March 2008, the trial operation was started. After three months of verification and training, the system was a success. Transfer success rate reached 87.9 percent, which greatly reduced pressure on controllers.