The Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) says measures being taken to address the problems facing communication in air navigation by the government and management of the country’s airspace have not been adequate as the problems is still insurmountable.

Speaking to reporters after his re-election for the second three year tenure, the president of NATCA Jilbril Haske declared that though the government and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) management have tried to address the communication problems last year, the temporary measures have not been completely effective.

According to Haske, there is the need for a holistic approach to the communication problem adding that the greatest problem of the country’s airspace was that the airspace was being managed from two centers, Lagos and Kano.

“At the same time, you are supposed to be communicating with aircraft under those geographical areas that are under their control. An area controller sitting in Lagos should be able to talk to aircraft overhead Calabar without any stress so that if he gives an instruction the pilot who is in Calabar will hear the controller in Lagos loud and clear and comply immediately and promptly in order to avert any incident or accident”

The NATCA president emphasized that communication was generally inadequate and that government intervention is needed to addressing the problem by making available required funds like that of the Total Radar Coverage.

Haske disclosed that NATCA will ensure that the VHF project which has been approved by the government does not drag like the TRACON project. “We are happy with the story of the gospel approval of the TRACON which is good, but remember TRACON took many years to implement. So that is why we are a little bit restrained. We are happy the federal government has approved VHF coverage; we only hope it will not be like TRACON. I mean within six months it should be completed”

He said emphasis now should be more on satellite base navigation, communication and surveillance ATM/CNS rather than terrestrial facilities currently in place,noting that the former will reduce cost of operations for NAMA.

Assessing NAMA’s existence in the past ten years, Haske noted that there have been some remarkable achievements in the organisation since it was carved out but added that it was not yet Uhuru.

“The DME has been unserviceable for years but with the establishment of NAMA, that has changed. Our navigational aid has been reasonably steady and okay. We are not yet at home with our navigational aid but generally when you compare them to the period before NAMA was established, we have made tremendous progress along that side”.

According to Haske, (lack of) equipment and inadequate personnel have been the challenges facing the association which has led to controllers working round the clock and one person doing the job of three which always lead to stress and fatigue.

“Our controllers are short staffed because of that the facilities that were supposed to be manned by three people is being manned by one person. The implication is that fatigue will come in, when you have fatigue, people are more prone to have committing errors,” Haske said.

While appreciating the efforts of the federal government and NAMA management on the recent approval of controllers increase in allowances, the NATCA president said it was not the final solution noting that the solution was to approve an air traffic salary structure to enhance motivation.