Mission ISHAN

April 27, 2024

In order to streamline and enhance air traffic management (ATM), India has initiated the process of consolidating its four airspace regions into a single entity spanning the entire nation -Indian Single Sky Harmonized Air Traffic Management (ISHAN) initiative, centered in Nagpur.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has called for expressions of interest to prepare a detailed project report for it.
Indian airspace is controlled through four flight information regions (FIRs) at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, and a sub-flight information region at Guwahati.
Expected benefits of ISHAN – seamless operations, reduced congestion, increased capacity, efficient routing, and reduced flight times.
Once ISHAN is implemented, all coordination for domestic flights flying in upper airspace (above 25,000 ft) will be handled by air traffic controllers (ATCOs) in Nagpur. The ATCOs in every region or airport would only be required to guide the flights approaching or taking off from an airport until they enter the upper space.