{"id":21085,"date":"2023-01-23T08:37:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T13:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=21085"},"modified":"2023-01-23T08:37:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T13:37:07","slug":"mogadishu-wishes-you-a-class-a-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/mogadishu-wishes-you-a-class-a-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Mogadishu Wishes You a Class A New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Mogadishu FIR is that chunk of Somalian airspace which you have probably flown through if you regularly route from the Middle East to southern Africa.<\/p>\n

Since 2022 they have been trialling the return of controlled airspace, and we have an update on that for you.<\/p>\n

First up though, why are we interested in this FIR?<\/h4>\n

Somalia and its direct neighbours are all fairly high risk regions in terms of airspace safety<\/strong>. Yemen is a no fly zone, Eritrea and Djibouti are both fairly unstable, Somalia has issues with Al-Shabab, and the Tigray region in Ethiopia has an ongoing conflict to contend with.<\/p>\n

So if we want to head from the Middle East into Africa or from Asia to Africa, we have to make a fairly large detour<\/strong> around these spots, or risk overflying areas considered unsafe\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0which also have limited diversion options due to safety and security concerns on the ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Somalia connects the Middle East and Asia to southern Africa.<\/p><\/div>\n

Having part of the Mogadishu FIR available doesn’t help fix the safety and security on the ground (or lack of diversion options) issue, but there are airways which keep you over the oceanic region<\/strong> here<\/strong>, which means the overflight safety risk is reduced, which means we don’t have to detour as far.<\/p>\n

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So the HCSM\/Mogadishu FIR offers a direct connection from the Mumbai FIR, and from Omani (Muscat) airspace into Africa.<\/p>\n

But it has issues of its own?<\/h4>\n

That it does.<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> situation on the ground in Somalia is highly unstable.<\/strong> The central government has little control of the major cities and ports, with ongoing attacks from extremist militants targeting civilians who continue to show an intent to target aviation interests. The<\/strong> primary risk<\/b> is to overflying aircraft at the lower flight levels, which may be targeted by anti-aircraft-capable weapons.<\/p>\n

What warnings should I know about?<\/h4>\n