The Russian/American Coordinating Group for Air Traffic Control, also known
as RACGAT met last week in Anchorage, Alaska at its tenth anniversary conference.
Established in the early 1990s by the Governments of Russia and the United
States, RACGAT was tasked to deal with short to medium-term airspace improvements
and route developments in the airspace bordering on the Russian Far East and
Alaska. The group's activities gained momentum and international recognition
in 1993, when Russia and the U.S. agreed to open the first General Aviation
VFR routing between Nome, Alaska and Uelen at Chukotka. The US-based Bering
Air became the first operator of this route, linking up native peoples of Alaska
and Chukotka divided for decades during the Cold War. In parallel, the group
pursued the opening of new Air Traffic Services (ATS) routes across the Russian
Far East, which were set to substantially cut the overall flying time between
North America and Southeast Asia, compared to the NOPAC tracks.
Encouraged by the interest of international airlines, RACGAT designed two sets
of ATS routes named ``Siberia`` and ``Kamchatka`` crossing the Russian Far East's
landmass and adjacent oceanic areas, which in the past were closed for international
traffic. Before these routes became feasible, Russians and Americans had to
undertake a large volume of technical work to resolve scores of problems related
to the paucity and the lack of ATC infrastructure in the region. The Area Control
Centers (ACCs) located in the Russian Far East were poorly equipped, lacked
English-speaking air traffic controllers and had no direct communication links
with the adjacent U.S. Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) at Anchorage
and other ACCs in neighboring States.
These adjacent centers also lacked respective 'Letters of Agreement' establishing
procedures for handling cross-border traffic. Despite these difficulties, both
sides were determined to complete the work they started. In 1993-1995 hundreds
of air traffic controllers from the Russian Far East underwent English-language
training in the UK and U.S. Through their joint effort, the U.S. FAA and Russia's
Rosaeronavigatsya managed to establish inter-facility communication between
Russian ACCs and Anchorage ARTCC to support the anticipated level of air traffic.
Realizing that the RACGAT activities would undoubtedly affect other countries,
the Russian and U.S. co-chairs invited representatives of third countries to
join RACGAT as observers. Since then, RACGAT meetings have been regularly attended
by aviation officials from Canada, China, Mongolia, Japan, North Korea and the
Republic of Korea, making RACGAT a truly international non-ICAO forum. After
a large volume of teamwork undertaken by all RACGAT participants, the Kamchatka
and Siberia routes were put into trial operations in the mid-1990s. The first
demonstration flights undertaken by Northwest Airlines and United Airlines proved
that the new airways are viable, which significantly reduced the traveling time
between paired cities in North America and Southeast Asia and allowed greater
fuel and time savings. Once the demonstration program was complete, the routes
were published in the Russian AIP and opened for regular operations. Currently,
the Kamchatka and Siberia routes are known as the Trans-East route network comprising
such routes such as G 212, B337, A218, G583 etc. The launching of these routes
substantially redistributed traffic flows in the North Pacific In 1997, RACGAT
launched a new initiative in world air commerce . At its sixth meeting in Irkutsk,
Russia, the group announced its intention to develop new, revolutionary Cross-Polar
routes. The reports presented at the meeting by IATA and interested international
airlines initiated the proposal to establish four new routes across the North
Pole to connect city-pairs in North America and Southeast Asia. The routes were
named Polar-1, 2, 3, 4. The opening of these routes required that the Russian
FSVT, US FAA and other countries resolve similar issues, which they faced on
Russian Far East routes. The new challenge, however is air-to-ground and ground-ground
communication. Due to greater distances involved the adjacent ACCs were unable
to use VHF for air-to-ground communications and landline voice circuits for
ground-to-ground communications. The use of the satellite communications, mainly
Inmarsat, was rather limited at high latitudes. To solve this problem, the group
had to single out optimal HF frequencies, which were tested during the first
demonstration flights. In addition, the Russians had to completely redefine
control areas in the Arctic Ocean to match the proposed alignment of the new
routes.
In summer 1998, Russian Transaero and the Hong-Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways
made their first demonstration flights on Polar-2 route. Cathay Pacific's flight
from New York to Hong-Kong demonstrated the high potential of the new routes.
Compared to the usual route via Vancouver, the airline was able to fly non-stop
saving up to 4.5 hours. Later in 1998 and in 1999, the two U.S. carriers, Northwest
Airlines and United Airlines, made many demonstration flights on Boeing 747-400s
between Detroit and Beijing and between Chicago and Hong-Kong, saving between
30 minutes and 1.5 hours respectively on the new routes. In early 2000, another
U.S. carrier, American Airlines, pioneered these routes with a new type of aircraft,
the Boeing 777. A single technical flight between Chicago and Hong-Kong proved
that the Boeing 777 was a good option for these new routes. Several months later,
Cathay Pacific scored another first by making a flight on Airbus-340 on the
Cross-polar route. Therefore, by the anniversary meeting in Anchorage, the ATC
authorities of Russia, the U.S. and other conerned countries had undertaken
over three hundred demonstration flights.
These demonstration flights set new challenges for the RACGAT group. The low
fuel freeze temperature, restricted access to multiple entry points into China,
ground-to-ground interfacility communications, limited route capacity, exchange
by OPMET data and NOTAM, availability of alternative and emergency landing airfields,
realignment of Kamchaka-4 route and establishment of Polar-2A were all issues
discussed at the recent meeting in Anchorage. On that occasion RACGAT was attended
by an unprecedented number of international airlines, including United, Northwest,
American, Continental, Cathay Pacific, Air Canada, Fedex, UPS, JAL, ANA and
Russian KrasAir, a reflection of growing interest to the new routes. At this
point, all four Polar routes are open for demonstration flights, which are carried
out pursuant to the monthly schedule approved by the Russian State Civil Aviation
Authority (SCAA). In addition to Northwest and United Airlines, which have already
been flying these new routes for many months, several other international airlines,
including Cathay Pacific, Continental Airlines and American Airlines annunced
that they were ready to join the demonstration program in the short term. Most
of these airlines, however, are awaiting the resolution of bilateral arrangements
before they launch operations on them. This has proven to be a problem, because
the Russian and U.S. authorities were unable to reach an understanding during
earlier rounds of U.S.-Russian bilateral talks. The Russians, in particular,
suggested that the U.S. cancel noise restrictions and the smoking ban for Russian
airlines flying into the U.S. before they would continue with discussions on
commercial access to polar routes. The next round of these U.S.-Russia bilateral
talks is scheduled for December.
