G'Day All
Officially some use of airways began in August 2003 though understandably not without difficulty, restrictions and a certain amount of “concern”. The Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA) now controls airspace but in practice this is administered by coalition forces through the Regional Air Movement Control Centre (RAMCC).
Try this link for details of the ais and aip
http://ramcc.dtic.mil/iraq.htm
Try this link for the most “interesting” part of the route.
https://164.214.2.62/dafif/enroutech...JUN%202005.pdf
There is a lot to be said distance-wise for routing Frankfurt-Elazig in Turkey and entering Iraq at KABAN where the old R21 used to be, now provisionally marked UR21/UT37. This route used to pass over Hawija, Zubeidiya (navaid certainly gone), Shatra, Basra, Sharjah and on to Muscat. I believe what happens now is that UR21 joins B416 just to the East of Kuwait at AMBIK I think.
There are two other routes handy for Kuwait that it would be advantageous for the ICAA/RAMCC to keep open and I think that they try to.
By memory Northbound is good old UL602, all the way to Glasgow if you want and you could pick it up at the Kuwaiti border at TASMI; Southbound is UP975, not so familiar but that part of Europe is riven with parallel unidirectionals (BULEN sticks in my memory somehow) through Dyarbarkir DYB thus (briefly passing through Syrian airspace) and it enters Kuwait at SIDAD on the old R21.
Thus UR21 retains all the savour of pre-conflict R21 (if open) and UL602//UP975 are a unidirectional pairing, the latter with a slight Syrian twist to give the flavour a little kick.
Not without a few organisational difficulties I'd say but for some there are savings to be had.