Combined Air Operations Centres

The Combined Air Operations Centres at Uedem, Germany and Torrejón, Spain are responsible to plan, direct, task, coordinate, supervise and support air operations of allocated assets in peace, crisis and conflict. Routinely they are tasked to execute NATO’s Air Policing mission closely cooperating with Control and Reporting Centres, National Air Policing Centres and dedicated Quick Reaction Alert air bases across their respective area of regional responsibility. Appropriately located to cover NATO’s entire European airspace, sensor posts are connected to feed into the Combined Air Operations Centres’ Recognized Air Pictures, allowing them to monitor all up to 30,000 air movements in European NATO airspace per day. Quick Reaction Alert Interceptor aircraft stand ready at dedicated air bases to launch upon the Combined Air Operations Centres’ orders to investigate unclear or potentially unsafe situations and to visually identify unknown aircrafts.