Erbil - normal procedures?
 

Hello,

This is my first post to here and for starting have to say, I'm not a pilot. Here is two print screen from flightradar24 near Erbil International airport. One shows how Austrian Airlines Airbus take off and made some circles in take off. It was earlier this week. Other one shows Iraqi airways quite intresting flight route, from earlier today. It flight path is rather intresting especially midway of the route. I'm intresting to know is these normal procedures or is it all because of IS, which operate abou 50-60km from Erbil?

http://awesometuop.tumblr.com/post/122016768766

Is this kind of destination for the pilots (especially western airliners pilots which normally operate like Rome or Stockholm) "just another day in the office" or is it selected or "volunteer" (with some extra salary?) pilots which fly these kind of destinations which are near warzone or otherwise very unstable?

Austrian choose to spiral climb/descend overhead Erbil as their procedure. The IAW flight is going around restricted airspace FL280 and below which goes from Mosul towards Kirkuk, hence why you will see aircraft go towards Sulaymaniyah - as they are vectored around it.

Deutsche Airlines fliegen weiter in den Irak - Panorama - Süddeutsche.de

Anyone with more knowledge about the C-130 incident 23.03.2017 at Erbil?

I go their on a regular basis (B738) and we don't have any special procedures other than not accepting directs and sticking to the airways. (company restriction) When we were coming in from the north you were restricted to FL310 IIRC on the border between Turkey and Iraq. Heading through Iraq there are no restrictions other than the above mentioned.