The shift leader and supervisor at the Sarajevo Regional Air Traffic Control Center, Mehmed Jahic, told for agency Fena that 2021 was a very successful year, with over 180.000 aircraft using their services during the overflight of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
According to him, the Covid-19 pandemic had a very negative impact on the air force in general. He emphasized that 2020 has brought aviation as a profession and all the service industries that go along with it on its knees.
”In 2019, we had about 35.000 flights per day in Europe. During the pandemic, it was reduced to around 9, or 7 percent on certain days, when it comes to aircraft that used air navigation control services, mostly cargo planes that were transporting medical equipment at that time, ” said Jahic.
While assessing this year as very successful, he noted that they had an analysis and several scenarios for predicting how the summer flight schedule in 2021 will be organized.
As he said, the BiH Air Navigation Services Agency (BHANSA) used the time of the pandemic for some kind of consolidation and to prepare for recovery, even though no one was sure how it would take place.
Speaking about the Sarajevo Regional Air Traffic Control Center, he stated that it was one of the two units of the Sarajevo Regional Air Traffic Control Center, and the other unit was located in Banja Luka. He explained that the operating room isstaffed by personnel of different profiles – air traffic controllers, traffic flow controllers, shift leaders, assistants for processing flight plans.
The point of everyone who works here is to ensure safe, regular,and expeditious air traffic in our area of competence, ” concluded Jahic.
