The Cypriot Department of Civil Aviation has issued NOTAM A1105/26 establishing a temporary military operations area—designated the “Gold Area”—from flight level 050 to 110 over the island’s south-eastern offshore quadrant. The restriction, published on 10 October and valid until 23:59 UTC on 10 November, requires all civilian aircraft transiting the coordinates to maintain continuous radio contact with Nicosia Area Control Centre (ACC) or Tel Aviv ACC and to monitor the emergency frequency. The NOTAM states that the zone will be activated in real time following tactical coordination between the user and Nicosia ACC and includes a 1,000-ft vertical buffer. While scheduled airline routes are not expected to be rerouted, business-aviation operators and freight charters using flexible flight-planning systems must file routes that either avoid the area or include the mandated procedures. Corporate flight departments with short-notice missions to Larnaca, Paphos or Middle Eastern destinations should alert crews to the additional radio workload. Operators with time-critical cargo may prefer to file via Cairo or Ankara FIRs to minimise holding delays in the event that live training temporarily closes the airspace block. The Gold Area exercise follows similar drills held in April and is part of Cyprus’s broader effort to integrate its air-defence network with regional partners. Although the activities are not expected to disrupt commercial schedules, travellers should prepare for the possibility of minor airborne holding or modest slot restrictions during peak traffic hours if controller workload spikes. Human-resources teams relocating staff or VIPs during the period should build a buffer into tight connection windows at hub airports and remind travellers that short-notice changes to routing are operational rather than security-related.
Source: Notamify
