South Africa's air traffic control faces scrutiny as safety risks rise

Banele Ginidza

Aviation industry leaders on Monday said changes being rung by Transport Minister Barbara Creecy at the Air Traffic Navigation Systems (ATNS) were akin to booting the stable door after the horses had bolted.

The changes brought about at the ATNS included the recruitment of ATNS' high level staff poached by international airports, upgrading of communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) systems, maintenance of instrument, flight procedures, prioritising and improving governance processes for safety accountability

In a briefing on upgrades to the ATNS widely seen to have put South Africa's airspace on high risk, Creecy said all the recommendations were being implemented in various stages of completion.

"Since the commencement of this investigation, a number of other urgent interventions have been identified as critical for ATNS’s continued operations and we are beginning to notice progress," Creecy said.

"The safety action group has been established and it meets weekly, that will proactively manage future findings and recommendations. Safety review board [will] meet quarterly. The High Risk findings have been a process to implement remedial measures on all the high risk findings that was concluded by the end of February. Medium risk ones will be attended by the end of March."

Creecy said as the current alternative means of compliance (AMOC) at key airports will expire in early April 2025.

ATNS was required to maintain these procedures and ensure that they were flight ready before this expiry date.

She said as it was unlikely that these flight procedures will be flight ready before April 2025, urgent steps were being taken to prioritise procedures for minimal impact at major airports such as OR Tambo International, Cape Town International, King Shaka International, Chief Dawid Stuurman International and George airports.

Creecy said the department will on Tuesday be applying to the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) for limited extension of the procedures, which had been split into two.

"Focus will be on accelerating contracts with international flight procedure designers and charting specialists. Other airports may face access impacts during poor visibility or bad weather," Creecy said.

"These procedures will be maintained after completing work at the key airports with domestic and international scheduled operations."

Meanwhile outgoing local and regional carrier Airlink CEO and MD, Rodger Foster, said ATNS had created a serious safety risk for the aviation industry.

Foster noted that the AMOC's expiry in April had huge implications for all major airports in the country.

“We are still denied the use of almost 300 instrument flight procedures that were perfectly fine to use until mid-July 2024 when ATNS missed its deadline to submit the revalidation paperwork to the SACAA for re-approval,” he highlighted.

“Instrument flight procedures are fundamental to operational safety. By withdrawing them, as a fig leaf for its administrative failure, ATNS is obliging pilots to operate aircraft with far narrower margins than any of us would like.”

Foster also called for executive accountability at ATNS.

Although almost nine months had elapsed since the original total of 326 instrument flight procedures had been withdrawn, ATNS’ board and top management still appeared to have no idea of the scale of the crisis, not merely for airlines and their passengers, but for the national economy.

“And so it was not surprising to learn that the Minister has instructed the ATNS board to suspend the CEO pending the outcome of an investigation into the fulfilment of her duties,” Foster said.

Meanwhile, airlines still had to pay ATNS charges (which were set to increase) for services that it was not providing. And those services it did provide were often inefficient, driving up airline costs.

These inefficiencies included long queues at runway holding points, excessive routings, diversions and holding patterns. Such inefficiencies had cost Airlink alone R55 million over the past year.

BUSINESS REPORT