Iraq Airspace to re-open for overflights

ORBB/Baghdad FIR Overflights of Iraq may be allowed to restart within the upcoming week, permitting international carriers entrance once again to numerous formerly heavily used ways through the eastern side of the Baghdad FIR.

Further, the report mentioned that in May 2017, SFAR 77 forbidden the US operators to operate inside Iraqi airspace but it failed and got was replaced by Notam KICZ in October 2017, which had almost the same wording.

Nevertheless, on October 3rd, Iraq released a latest Notam- A0477/17 with a new constrained area in the northwest of the FIR, from Surface to FL460. They withdraw the aforementioned restricted areas 601 and 701.

Due to this re-shuffling of the constrained airspace, the route for two chief international air routes has been reopened, naming UM860 and UM688. These routes were readjusted in April 2017, for the same purpose, letting the operators an additional way options through the Middle East to Europe and vv.

There is an expectation by FSB regarding an official announcement soon, thus the operators will be further updated. OpsGroup members will be directly notified.

News Source :http://flightservicebureau.org/iraq-airspace-to-re-open-for-overflights/