AN INTRODUCTION TO AIR TRAFFIC SERVICES BY VATM
Air Traffic Services is a general term used to refer to a variety of services, including air traffic control services (area control service, approach control service, aerodrome control service), flight information services, air traffic advisory services and alarm services.
The purposes of the air traffic services aim to:
- Prevent collisions between aircraft;
- Prevent collisions between aircraft in the maneuvering area and obstacles in that area;
- Expedite and maintain an orderly flow of air traffic;
- Provide advice and information useful for the safe and efficient operations of flights;
- Notify appropriate organizations regarding aircraft in need of search and rescue aid, and assist such organizations as required.
VATM is the responsible authority for the provision of air traffic services within the airspace over the entire territory including territorial water of Viet Nam and at all airports over the country.
Three member companies of VATM (NORATS, MIRATS, SORATS) manage all air traffic control units including 02 Area Control Centers (Ha Noi ACC and Ho Chi Minh ACC), 04 Approach Control Centers (Noi Bai APP, Da Nang APP and Tan Son Nhat APP) and 21 Air Traffic Control Towers. Moreover, VATM has taken over and provided some air navigation services from Airports Corporation of Viet Nam (ACV) since 1st January 2016, including ground control service, aircraft marshaling service and ATS reporting service. This helps VATM improve its production process consistency and air navigation services quality.
Air traffic controllers working at Hanoi Area Control Center
Air traffic controllers directly provide air traffic control service, flight information service and alerting service for aircraft and support the crew to operate flights safely and effectively. By the end of 2016, there are more than 500 air traffic controllers working at air traffic control units over the country. Their job is to provide air traffic control instructions and advices for the crew regarding flight altitude, airspeed, routes, weather information and other related information in order to prevent collision between in-flight aircraft, between aircraft on the manoeuvring area and between aircraft and obstacles in the airport area.
Air traffic controllers working at Tan Son Nhat Air Traffic Control Tower.
In the recent years, there have been many significant improvements in VATM’s air traffic service provision coming from great achievements, especially in airspaces organization and flight procedures. Those include the reorganization of responsibility areas of Hanoi ACC and Ho Chi Minh ACC starting from mid 2015 and completing in early 2016, reorganization and restructuration of responsibility areas of Da Nang air traffic control units in April 2016, implementation of two new parallel RNAV 5 North-South oriented airways in August 2016, implementation of RNAV 1 SID/STAR at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in November 2016..etc.
On 7th December 2016, VATM has provided air navigation service safely for 700,000th flight in the year that marked an important milestone in terms of air traffic control capacity growth of VATM.
As “Safety - Regularity - Efficiency” is the top priority, VATM has always endeavored to implement measures with the aim of improving air traffic service capacity and quality by innovation and improvement of air traffic control procedures, optimization of enroute and terminal airspace organization; application of advanced navigation technology at airports with high density of flights; cooperation with international organizations to study and optimize airspaces and flight procedures in Vietnam in order to deal with rapid domestic and international aviation growth.
