On the basis of the cooperation agreement between the General Civil Aviation Authority of the United Arab Emirates (GCAA) and Eurocontrol in October 2015, real-time flight data exchange has been successfully started.

Currently there are already about 400 flights a day between Europe and the Middle East and an additional 150-200 aircraft as overflights, while traffic is growing at 3.6% a year. The agreement  will also cover flight plan and airport departure information.

“Real time updates of departure times and other trajectory information is now being exchanged between the operational systems of Eurocontrol Network Manager and the UAE main air traffic control centre on the major traffic flows between Europe and the UAE," said Frank Brenner, Director General of Eurocontrol.

“The full implementation of this cooperation agreement will bring substantial benefits to the predictability of these traffic flows as all ATM actors will have much more accurate information on these flights,” said Joe Sultana, Director Network Manager at Eurocontrol. 

This data exchange is the central part of the Collaborative Global ATFM concept that is being promoted by Eurocontrol and fully supports the ICAO Global Air Navigation plan which requires global interoperability of information and the seamless management of major traffic flows across ATM regions.