Libya's civil airspace to reopen under Libyan ATC following new deal with Italy's ENAV

The Libyan Minister of Transport, Yussef Al-Whishi  met today with Massimo Garbini the CEO of ENAV, the Italian Air Navigation service, in Tripoli where a memorandum of understanding was signed that sees the Italian company provide training and mentoring to reopen the skies

The pair met in Tripoli along with the Italian Ambassador, Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi and the Director General of Libya’s civil aviation authority, Abdulrazag M. Zatout

Zatout and Garbini (both pictured above)  signed the agreement which offers the immediate provision of training courses for Libyan air traffic controllers and, following that, the development of Libyan air navigation assistance services, ground technology to ensure the safe execution of flights and the development of an air traffic management system.
“Air traffic will be normalised thanks to the execution of the technical agreement and Libyan air flights will start circulating again. Normalization is paramount for Libya’s economic development,” a statement issued after the signing, said.
The terms of the deal provide that ENAV offers Libyan controllers, free of charge, the possibility to obtain once again the operational certification after a 10 months’ interruption of the service due to the closing of airspace.

ENAV will start a new one-month programme on December 11^th .   30 instructors and controllers will be trained for two weeks (one week based on theory and the other week based on practice) in ENAV’s Academy, based in Forli.
Following that period, they will return to Libya still accompanied by their Italian instructors.  A third week of training will be organized and at the same time Libyan skies will be re-opened to air traffic.
In the same week, whilst Libyan Instructors reactivate air traffic service control, ENAV Instructors will start training 180 Libyan controllers. These professionals will be split into different teams depending on the qualification required to operate in the Area Control Centers of Tripoli, Bengasi, and in the control towers located in the main airports.
ENAV will also provide a flight inspection service through its own fleet of properly equipped aircraft, in other words it will monitor Libyan radio assistances, in order to check radio signals during planes’ take off and landing phases and to certify the main air navigation services from the ground, in compliance with the highest air safety standards.
As soon as Libya reactivates its air traffic operational system (of systems and of Human Resources), a new technical roundtable  discussion will start with LCAA.  Through a commercial agreement, it shall establish the ways in which ENAV will be able to provide Libya with the necessary support so that Libyan air traffic management can further develop (application of legislation, update of systems, development plans).