Overflying Iraq

[Pandy]

Flew GF003 BAH/LHR Sun June 19th as SLF.

Was a bit surprised to look out of the window & see the Shatt Al Arab. We followed it up to the Basra area then up north of Bagdad, where we turned NW up to (I assume) the Turkish border.

Regularly fly Gulf / London (8 times so far this year) but can't remember overflying Iraq since the 1980's? Usually its up the Tap Line road over Saudi or Tehran.

Questions:

Is this new or have I just missed out?
Are all airlines now using this routing or just some, if so which ones?
Does it save any time on a Gulf / London flight or even BOM / London?

Be grateful for any advice from the pro's

Cheers

Pandy

[tb10er]

We flew with LH from FRA to KWI on 08 Aug 2004. I too was surprised to fly over Baghdad and Basra before a VERY steep decent into KWI - we were still at 23000' over Basra before a decending turn over the Gulf into KWI.

We have flown that route many times but normally fly via Cyprus, Syria, Saudi, and in over the southern border of Kuwait.

The return trip was back via the more familiar route. There had been some insurgent problems in Iraq over the previous few days so whether that had some bearing.

[enicalyth]

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/enroutechartscur/ename/ENAME%20H-13%209%20JUN%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.