Why we lack air traffic controllers — Farouk, NAMA MD

Oru Leonard 

Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, Mr Umar Farouk, in an interview with the Vanguard Newspaper, discusses the agency’s past problems, its current challenges and how they are being addressed. At the same time, he shares his thoughts on the shortage of air traffic controllers and review of navigation charges among others. Excerpts:

NAMA became prominent for grappling with infrastructure issues. However, things have changed.

Let me start with communication. Before now, most of the airlines avoided Nigerian airspace because they found it extremely difficult to communicate with air traffic controllers. The communication system was weak and over-saturated due to demand. As the industry grows, one would expect more routes to open, but there was no corresponding facility to match the emerging air traffic. So, what we did was to ensure that the Federal Government made a huge investment in that regard. We realised that there were so many openings, many routes and we had to increase stations in order to have signals that would cover the entire Nigeria. However, the entire communication structure has been re-designed to make sure that every blind spot is covered. Where we are today, even if one system fails, the air traffic controller will not notice because there is an overlap. When one overlaps, the other one assists

Electricity

We also realise that our radios are now functioning well and are well-positioned. Although we have addressed the challenges we met, we are still having issues. These issues have nothing to do with radios, but electricity. You will agree with me that for decades, power had been a national issue. It has defied solutions and the government is still working hard to ensure that it gets it right. However, what we have decided to do is to deploy solar energy to some of these facilities, so that they can function well. We have other sources of power, including the national grid, generators and plants and solar. We deploy these three because the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, frowns at blackout, even for a second. We ensure that we have an uninterrupted power supply. Although the funding is not there, we are approaching it systematically to ensure that communication is good. At the moment, we have made significant improvement, but there is still room for further improvement.

N40 billion Intervention 

Recently, the Minister approached the presidency for intervention, and N40 billion was budgeted, although we are yet to access the money. As soon as it is done, we will be able to tackle critical challenges as far as communication is concerned. If you visit Navaids, you would notice we have obsolete facilities. For an average electronic system, the lifespan is about 10 years, but for us, most of these electronics have been working for the past 15-20 years. Therefore, one would expect the performance to be below standard. That said, we are replacing them. In fact, we have commenced the replacement of all these facilities. If not for funding, we would have finished replacing all of them. For now, we have done almost 80 per cent and the contractors are still working. The Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria, TRACON, also causes us challenges. Since 2014, we do not have enough spare parts. The cost of spare part and the obsolete state of the equipment are issues. The Federal Executive Council, FEC, has approved the modernisation of the TRACON system and 15 per cent of the fund has been paid and we are hopeful that when the presentation tallies, installations will be made.

Shortage of Air Traffic Controllers

We don’t have enough air traffic controllers. The challenge is still there. The mistake of the past administration is that it had no proper manpower auditing or proper planning. It takes time to train air traffic controllers, and they are quite aware of this, which went on for many years. Now that we have decided to recruit them, it would take more than one year to train air traffic controllers that would be on the hot seat. You can imagine the gap, and we can’t train hundreds of them. Can you imagine the time it takes to train them? What is the turnover of that process? It takes time to get the number required. That is the challenge we are experiencing. But, we are working towards ensuring that that aspect is addressed.

Review of navigation charges

There was a meeting of aviation stakeholders that was convened by the NCAA. At that meeting, I raised the issue with the Arline Operators of Nigeria, AON. Since 2008, the navigation charge has been the same. In 2008, the charge was N11,000 when airfare was N16,000. They have been reviewing the air ticket; today, the fare is N150,000 per flight, yet we are still charging N11,000. I think it is unfair and anytime their attention is drawn to it, they do not want us to review it. We are a cost recovery agency and we are making huge investment in ensuring that safety is not compromised. It is high time the airlines accepted the reality. We are going to review our navigational charges to match the current economic situation. We have written to the Ministry and when it is time to do that, we will call for stakeholders meeting so that we let them know and give them time to prepare and adjust to the new charges.

The agency complained about political interference in the past. What is the situation now?

The main problem of the agencies was political interference. Professionals were not allowed to do things professionally, but since the advent of this administration, what we are witnessing is a lack of interference.

The minister doesn’t interfere in the agency’s operations but ensures the affairs of this industry are conducted professionally. Whatever we ask, it is given to us except it is beyond him. He never interferes in the operations of the agencies. He is a thorough person. As a lawyer, he doesn’t want to fail.