New Delhi, Sept 29: Indian Air Force and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are jointly developing a masterplan on airspace management to expand the sky area for greater traffic over major airports in the country by partially opening defence airspace. "In three months, trials can begin at airports like Hyderabad and Bangalore where there is heavy traffic. We can expand the airspace by 15 to 20 per cent," Chief of Air Staff S Krishnaswamy told reporters here.

He said that the air traffic controllers of the air force and the civilian side would sit together to work out the finer details on the "flexibility of airspace management".

Stating that small countries like Singapore and South Africa had increased air traffic considerably through such an exercise, Krishnaswamy said a lot of airspace lying unutilised could be utilised to enhance civilian air traffic.
DGCA chief Satinder Singh told newspersons that "substantial progress" had been made on this front but declined to give details on grounds of security.

Earlier, the Air Chief briefed reporters on the first-ever air race in India, called Air Race India 2003, in which small and light aircraft as well as choppers would participate from different corners of the country and converge at Nagpur on November 22.
Bureau Report