{"id":4413,"date":"2022-06-07T03:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=4413"},"modified":"2022-06-08T09:30:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T13:30:41","slug":"saudi-yemen-airspace-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/saudi-yemen-airspace-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi-Yemen Airspace Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an improving airspace risk picture<\/strong> in Saudi Arabia since a ceasefire was agreed in April – which has now been extended to Aug 2. All groups have agreed to halt the conflict<\/strong> inside and outside Yemeni borders. The first month of the ceasefire saw no reported drone strikes in Saudi Arabia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, long-standing airspace warnings remain in place. If the conflict resumes, Houthi drone and missile attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia pose a potential threat to ops at Saudi airports, and for overflights of the OEJD\/Jeddah FIR. The most significant risk is in the south of the country along the border with Yemen, but OERK\/Riyadh and OEJN\/Jeddah airports have also been targeted in the past.<\/p>\n

Back in March 2021, OEJN\/Jeddah Airport<\/strong> closed temporarily following multiple attempted drone attacks. Saudi media reported dozens of drones were intercepted in their airspace, and the US Embassy also issued a statement<\/a>.\u00a0OERK\/Riyadh Airport<\/strong> was targeted in June 2020<\/a> and again in October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Much of the information comes from state media and cannot always be independently verified. In 2017, a New York Times investigation<\/a> suggested that at least one of the most high-profile attacks from that year may not have been \u201cshot-down\u201d or intercepted by Saudi defense systems at all.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia Airspace Risk<\/h4>\n

With the ceasefire now in place, we’re waiting to see if any of the countries who have issued airspace warnings<\/span><\/a> for Saudi Arabia will amend their guidance.<\/p>\n

Germany<\/strong> and Canada<\/strong> warn of a risk to landing anywhere in the country, but particularly along the border with Yemen in the southwest part of the OEJD\/Jeddah FIR. France\u00a0<\/strong>has issued similar advice, with the specific warning not to operate to OEAB\/Abha, OEGN\/Jazan, OENG\/Nejran, OESH\/Sharurah, OEWD\/Wadi Al Dawasir and OEBH\/Bisha airports:<\/p>\n

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The airports to really watch out for.<\/p><\/div>\n

A note on Yemen<\/h4>\n

The first month of the ceasefire saw notably reduced hostilities in Yemen, and commercial flights resumed at OYSN\/Sanaa Airport for the first in six years.<\/p>\n

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The situation at OYSN\/Sanaa airport has been pretty bleak since it closed in 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n

However, Yemen remains an active conflict zone, and the vast majority of Yemeni airspace (OYSC\/Sanaa FIR) should be avoided. Several countries have prohibited flights<\/strong> here due to the ongoing conflict on the ground. The oceanic portion of the OYSC\/Sanaa FIR is excluded from most warnings, by nature of being offshore. The guidance issued by the US FAA currently looks like this:<\/p>\n

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US operators are only allowed on M999 and UT702 offshore routes.<\/p><\/div>\n

Essentially, US operators are banned from flying north of a line KAPET-NODMA-ORBAT-PAKER-PARIM-RIBOK. The US FAA specifically mentions UT702 and M999 as being ok to use.<\/p>\n

Watch out for ESCAT<\/h4>\n

You might know this as SCATANA. ESCAT is the new name, but the process is the same – if you’re overflying the OEJD\/Jeddah FIR and hear “ESCAT RULES ARE NOW ACTIVE”<\/strong> (or something to that effect) you need to be aware that these apply to you!<\/p>\n

You will likely be given a change of route directly out of the airspace<\/strong>, or will be directed to land at the nearest suitable aerodrome<\/strong>. The purpose is to clear the affected airspace of all civilian aircraft at which point they close down all nav aids and airports until the threat has been dealt with.<\/p>\n

ESCAT procedures are published in GEN 1.6 of Saudi Arabia’s AIP<\/a>. If you don’t have a login, you can see the relevant section here<\/a>. There are some special routes that you have to fly in the southern part of the OEJN\/Jeddah FIR, as advised by Notam, and you can find these in AIP SUP 02\/21<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SafeAirspace.net<\/a>\u00a0continues to provide up-to-date information for both Saudi and Yemen airspace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an improving airspace risk picture in Saudi Arabia since a ceasefire was agreed in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":18662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,319,876],"tags":[336,261],"class_list":{"0":"post-4413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-briefings","8":"category-news-item","9":"category-safe-airspace","10":"tag-saudi-arabia","11":"tag-yemen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4413","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4413"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18665,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4413\/revisions\/18665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}