I noticed the devs added a new NOTAM around HAAB saying that runway 07L/25R is closed and exclusively used as a taxiway, even though in real life this isn’t the case.
Usually I see these NOTAMs at places like Gatwick or Bahrain, which makes sense since the runways noted in the NOTAM are used as taxiways IRL. At Addis, however, the runway usage switches quite a lot. It’s not at all uncommon that ATC actually uses runway 07R/25R as a taxiway and utilizes 07L for traffic, despite it being furthest from the ramp.
If this NOTAM was meant as a recommendation for people who don’t know how HAAB operates, then that’s fine. But for people like me who are actually aware of how traffic operates in Addis, I think it’s a bit unfair to enforce this procedure as law. Hopefully a dev who sees this considers changing it!
Both runways are, depending on the flow of traffic. I could be wrong since I don’t live there, but in my experience flying there IRL, they use 07L for all traffic when operating eastbound, and 25L for all traffic when operating westbound. Note this is a general rule; they do switch it up occasionally.
It looks like 25R is indeed used at times for landings and also at times as a taxiway, looking at some FR24 replays (ET707 yesterday would be another example).
Ok, so here is my guess. You see in the image above how the runways are close to each other? It is too dangerous to land to aircraft on it at the same time. Winds, other planes, and more can effect this. So in this case IF most likely did this to avoid it.
Yes, hence why they only operate 1 runway at a time. The problem is that runway switches; neither runway is closed indefinitely. Both are used, just not at the same time.
Ok, then let ATIS enforce that. A controller can denote 1 active runway. HAAB doesn’t see that much traffic anyway, idk why anyone felt the need to enforce this.
Ok, operating one runway at the time is clear. We get that, and I think we get why the active switches. Or do we?
The questions is (and this determines the NOTAM) whether the inactive runway can be used as a taxi way without permission. If permission to cross this runway would still be needed, than its still a runway, and that could be the reason why on IF we don’t have a NOTAM.
The NOTAM you see in IF is about runways that are permanently used as a taxi way and can be crossed without permission.
