Agency: The future of the entire Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) project depends on the Gelephu International Airport (GIA) getting the two key routes through India for landing and takeoff.
Bhutan formally placed a request for the two routes, Igay and Taray in the east and west, to directly fly out and in from the GIA in October 2024.
Discussions have been going on between both sides since then, and there is optimism on both sides that this will eventually come through though it may take some time.
The latest development on this front is that both the countries are in the process of jointly drafting an important overall Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will then be the template for moving forward on the GIA routes and more.
FIR
The most important component of the MOU currently being discussed by both countries is on the Flight Information Region (FIR) over Bhutan.
While the airspace above Bhutan is the country’s sovereign airspace, given the comparatively late entry of civil aviation to Bhutan and the limited capacity of the past, Bhutan is yet to list the airspace above Bhutan under the FIR of Bhutan with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
FIR is a clearly defined block of airspace above a country for which the country is responsible to provide Air Traffic Services like flight information services, alerting services and general airspace management.
The Indian side has indicated that both countries need to resolve the FIR issue first in the MOU before proceeding onto the GIA.
For Bhutan itself, while a FIR was always important and a part of the natural evolution of its aviation sector, it assumed more importance in the last few years with GMC and GIA as a means to attract potential investors and even airlines as the absence of a Bhutan controlled FIR would be a potential barrier.
Both sides are negotiating the MOU and the first step in that is both sides draft their own points they want in the MOU and send it to each other.
The Bhutanese side is likely to seek help from the Government of India for Bhutan’s aim to have its own FIR over Bhutan by applying with the ICAO and also putting in the remaining infrastructure and manpower required for such a FIR.
India itself has four FIRs in Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, and so has a rich experience and capacity in this field that Bhutan can look to for help in setting up its own FIR.
The idea of a Bhutan FIR is simple, in that the sovereign airspace over Bhutan should be controlled and managed by Bhutan as it now has the technical capacity to do so, and also the need to do so. Bhutan has not handed over this FIR right to anyone till date.