On May 18, SITA announced that it is working with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to deploy an additional 17 VHF ground stations at the nation's airports to allow Indian airlines and the AAI to exchange real-time data with aircraft that will enable increased safety and efficiency of operations in the country's increasingly crowded skies.

This would bring SITA's AIRCOM network in India to 23 stations supporting the country's national air fleet. Globally, SITA operates over 850 VHF ground stations in over 160 countries making it the world's largest private data radio network.

The announcement was made in New Delhi by Akhil Sharma, SITA's London-based Director with worldwide responsibility for Air Traffic Management, en route to attend the first Indian-hosted AGM and CEO Conference of the global Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO) in Kochi.

"SITA enjoys a good working relationship with the Airports Authority of India and this is especially important as Indian airlines switch to the latest aircraft equipped with data link communications and away from dependence on voice communications," said Sharma.

Dr K Ramalingam, Chairman of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), commented, "AAI has pioneered the use of SITA's data link service in its oceanic airspace that covers the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea which today is delivering operational benefits enabled by remote airspace surveillance and data link communications between air traffic controllers and pilots."

By 2010 India's aircraft fleet will have doubled in the space of five years and there will be increasing traffic from non-Indian carriers putting additional pressure on air traffic control voice communications.

Maneesh Jaikrishna, SITA Sales Director, India and South Asia, said, "With the support of SITA, data link communications is becoming standard around the world and as VHF voice congestion will continue to rise, the data link alternative significantly reduces the risk of mis-communication because of language or accent problems. This is a very practical and important consideration in the increasingly globalised world of Indian aviation."

SITA's AIRCOM network in India originally comprised just four VHF ground stations at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. In recent years it has expanded as Jet Airways, Air Sahara and Kingfisher all became customers for AIRCOM Server, SITA's turnkey solution for airline implementation of the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System known as ACARS. In addition to straightforward communication between pilots and air traffic controllers, ACARS also allows, for example, the uploading of weather and flight plans and downloading of engine performance data.

More than 8,000 commercial aircraft operated by over 100 airlines, use the SITA AIRCOM service, far more airlines than use any other digital communications service. These aircraft all use the VHF AIRCOM data link service and 2,000 of them also use the Satellite AIRCOM voice and data service.