

Airbus A220-300 aeroplane in flight, Photo: EPA/Guillaume Horcajeuelo

Twenty-seven years after the outbreak of war and after 15 years of preparation, Bosnia and Herzegovina finally assumes control of the air traffic in its entire sky on the night of December 4 to December 5.

Air traffic control takes place on two levels – the first up to 10,000 meters, or 32,500 feet, and the second above that altitude called the middle and upper layers of airspace, where traffic is also densest.

From the outbreak of war in Bosnia in 1992 until 2014, Bosnia had no control over its skies at all.

In November 2014, it assumed control of the skies up to 10,000 meters. But air traffic over 10,000 meters above has since remained under the joint control of neighbouring Serbia and Croatia.

The Bosnian Air Navigation Services Agency, BHANSA, says over 80 per cent of the air traffic takes place in this upper zone. It, therefore, expects the number of flights it controls to increase significantly – up to 70 to 80 flights per hour, or 700 to 800 a day in winter, and up to 120 aircraft per hour, or 1,600 a day, in summer. Currently, it only controls about 200 planes per day.

It was only in mid-2018 that the Council of Ministers, the state government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adopted an “Airspace Management Policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, which paved the way for the country to finally take control of its entire sky.

The process of taking control of the entire sky took far longer in Bosnia than in other former Yugoslav republics.

“The problem for Bosnia and Herzegovina is that inadequate people were seated inadequate places; experts are not leading the process,” Emir Kulic, an air traffic expert and pilot, told N1 television on Monday.

He added that incompetence was not the only reason for the delay. “There were obstructions from Belgrade and Zagreb because of the money,” Kulic said, referring to the payments that airlines make to countries for flights over their territory and for the services of air traffic controllers. For 27 years, this money has ended up in Serbia and Croatia instead of in Bosnia.

Davorin Primorac, director of BHANSA, told the media in mid-October that he expects the country to earn millions of more euros a year once it takes control of its entire sky. BHANSA’s projected revenues for 2020 are about 36 million euros. In 2015 they amounted to 18 million euros.