UN Radio
Airport meteorology unit
By Birol Urcan
Hello and welcome this is UNMIK On Air,
Mejdi Xhelili has been working at the
Prishtina airport since 1964.
Xhelili who is 62 years old works in the
weather forecast unit, which informs the pilots of airplanes and other
airports, about the weather conditions at Prishtina international Airport.
Grey haired Mejdi sitting in his small
office at the airport remembers the old days.
“Before the war we used to work with classical means which are:
Thermometer, barometer and other, and for checking the level of fog we had to
go outside, while now we work with full digital equipment”
Not only digital….
Natural sound helicopters (also continue
on the background)
According to airport officials they are
the best equipped weather forecast unit in Balkans region.
Sherif Gosalci is the Chief of this Unit,
and he is very proud of the equipment that they possess, especially with the
two satellite systems for weather forecast.
“One of these systems is
satellite forecast system called Horace which is based on a British system and
it is used only by us and By NATO Forces for Europe. Then we have a device
called Sadis which is used for reporting to Pilots on the Air and we also
possess with “sondage” system of “Digi cora “which is unique for region of Balkans “
The Chief is not only proud of the
equipment but also with the professional level of the workers in this unit.
There are 15 of them with an average age of 30. One of them is Ramiz Latifi,
who works in an office equipped wall to wall with the latest metrological
computer technology.
“All our staff on weather
forecast unit has been trained in Meteorology office of England now we had
various times of training depending on the job that we do”
Ian Lisk who is the aviation meteorology
training manager at the UK MET office was one of the trainers involved in the
training of the staff of this unit. He is now on Kosovo for few days to update
the skills that personnel of the Meteorology unit gained during their training.
“They have been thoroughly
trained right from the start the initial forecaster training they have spend 12
to 18 months being trained for forecasters over the UK they have continued in
the job training here in Kosovo and since they are qualified two years ago they
have been working un supervised”
Natural
sound airplane landing…
In last few years no serious accident
occurred in the Prishtina airport. If the professional people at the airport
and the metrological office have anything to do with it, this happy situation
will continue for a very long time.
This was all for today, thank you for
listening and have a good day.