{"id":20958,"date":"2023-01-12T07:29:24","date_gmt":"2023-01-12T12:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=20958"},"modified":"2023-01-12T07:30:22","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T12:30:22","slug":"operation-orion-french-airspace-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/operation-orion-french-airspace-closures\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation Orion: French Airspace Closures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>France are worried about\u00a0<em>&#8220;the deterioration of the international context&#8221;<\/em>. Basically, they are worried about the state of the world. So, they have decided to run a fairly major crisis management readiness, preparedness sort of a thing over a 3 year period.<\/p>\n<p>As they put it, it will <em>&#8220;consider the hypothesis of a major engagement of high intensity as possible&#8221;<\/em> and help the armed forces prepare for it by practicing a whole bunch of exercise.<\/p>\n<p>Or as we put it &#8211; <strong>&#8220;a great big load of military mayhem in French airspace to look out for&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>Sounds big?<\/h4>\n<p>It will be. <strong>The<\/strong> <strong>biggest in 30 years<\/strong> in fact, involving a whole load of NATO members. But the main impact is going to be within French airspace.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Orion is the first of the 3 exercises<\/strong> which are planned over the next 3 years. It consists of 4 phases, expected to take place on the following dates:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Phase 1 &amp; 3 (computer assisted exercises, so no impact to ops)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phase 2: from 21 Feb to 10 March<\/strong>\u00a0(taking place in the southern part of France)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phase 4: from 17 April to 5 May<\/strong> (taking place in the north-eastern part of France)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>What does that mean for flight ops?<\/h4>\n<p>We heard someone say it will have a <strong>\u201chuge impact on the network\u201d<\/strong> with numerous flights impacted through re-routes, delays and probably cancellations because of airspace capacity reductions.<\/p>\n<h4>So, what do we need to worry about?<\/h4>\n<p>Phases 1 and 3 are computer assisted, but phase 2 involves real people and real military stuff including real military airplanes in <strong>real<\/strong> <strong>bits of airspace we normally really like to fly in.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The ramp up for this will start on<strong> Feb 16<\/strong> so you can expect disruption from them, through to <strong>March 10<\/strong> when the phase finishes.<\/p>\n<p>The maps aren&#8217;t the best quality but you can view them in the <a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/20230105_NP_26_LETTER-ORION-PHASE-2-IATA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">document here.<\/a> We have recreated the two main upper level ones for you below.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20962\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20962\" class=\"wp-image-20962 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Orion-Ohase-2-1024x704.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"704\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Orion-Ohase-2-1024x704.png 1024w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Orion-Ohase-2-300x206.png 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Orion-Ohase-2-768x528.png 768w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Orion-Ohase-2-1536x1056.png 1536w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Orion-Ohase-2.png 1894w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-20962\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">France upper level overlay.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_20963\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20963\" class=\"wp-image-20963 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Blank-2000-x-2000-copy-5-2-1024x714.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"714\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Blank-2000-x-2000-copy-5-2-1024x714.png 1024w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Blank-2000-x-2000-copy-5-2-300x209.png 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Blank-2000-x-2000-copy-5-2-768x535.png 768w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Blank-2000-x-2000-copy-5-2-1536x1070.png 1536w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Blank-2000-x-2000-copy-5-2.png 1884w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-20963\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mediterranean upper level overlay.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Because there are various different areas scattered across the region, flights may be disrupted in the areas between resulting in significant re-routes for overflights, with the impact felt across France and into UK airspace with NATS managing the routings that end.<\/p>\n<h4>A summary of possible threats:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Re-routes and inflight delays<\/li>\n<li>Congested airspace resulting in slots and disruption, possibly cancellations<\/li>\n<li>Reduced diversion options in France during exercises<\/li>\n<li>Military traffic to watch out for<\/li>\n<li>Complex danger and prohibited areas across multiple levels and regions to be aware of<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>There will be more information though right?<\/h4>\n<p>Yes, plenty hopefully:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AIP SUP is due out imminently.<\/li>\n<li>Eurocontrol are expected to run some conferences on this which will be announced by their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.public.nm.eurocontrol.int\/PUBPORTAL\/gateway\/spec\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Network Operations Portal here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The specific danger and prohibited areas will have notams issued closer to the dates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can find a\u00a0<em>calendar\u00a0<\/em>of<a href=\"https:\/\/shape.nato.int\/nato-exercises\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> NATO planned exercises here<\/a> to give a heads-up on future plans (and AIPs and Notams to look out for).<\/p>\n<p>So, watch this space and be prepared for some frustrating planning and routing disruptions through Feb and March, and again in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France are worried about\u00a0&#8220;the deterioration of the international context&#8221;. Basically, they are worried about the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[44,1366,2055],"class_list":{"0":"post-20958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-briefings","8":"tag-france","9":"tag-military-exercise","10":"tag-nato"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20958"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21014,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20958\/revisions\/21014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}