The managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Capt. Fola Akinkuotu has said that radio communication in the Nigerian airspace still has some challenges.
Speaking at the Air Traffic Controllers/Pilot Interactive Session held in Lagos on Wednesday with the theme ‘Enhancing safety of flight operations’ the managing director said NAMA was set up to provide communication in the airspace but regretted that the agency was yet to achieve 100 per cent.
“Radio communication today is not the best. I have spent two years in NAMA and I thought I would have fixed this problem but I haven’t. Effort is being made and we are not going to stop because any air traffic communication that is not crisp clear is a recipe for confusion.
“In the South east, a lot of pilots have had to step on each other and ATCs because of poor communication and if you are foreign to the clime, that may make you categorize our airspace as unsafe.
“I work for NAMA . Part of NAMA’S job is communication but we have not achieved what we set out to do. And so we are asking feedback from the users.
“We are not afraid of criticism but we enjoin you to make it civil. We beg, we implore, we beseech in the interest of safety to take things seriously and for our pilots to be more patient and understanding with the ATCs.”
For his part, the president of NATCA, Mr. Abayomi Agoro said the control towers at the Kaduna, Maiduguri, Ilorin, Yola, Sokoto, Benin, and Katsina airports were not in top forms.
He said commercial flight operations without communication between the pilot in the cockpit and the air traffic controllers have dire consequences.
“The present Controller-Pilot VHF Communication coverage of Nigeria’s airspace is a far cry from the required international standard but it is still work in progress with NAMA.
“Over the years, it has been quite herculean for air traffic controllers to communicate effectively with pilots.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, it is important to mention it again that the control towers at the Kaduna, Maiduguri, Ilorin, Yola, Sokoto, Benin, Katsina airports are in very deplorable state
“The case of Abuja Tower Elevator that suddenly dropped from the topmost floor to the ground is a sore point in Nigeria’s aviation industry.
“Even more worrisome I the threat of health hazard to ATCs who go through agony climbing 232 flights of stairs on a daily basis,” he said.
Agoro also decried loss of revenue in foreign exchange by NAMA because aircraft avoid the airspace to operate in contiguous airspace.
He also decried the limited number of ATC to effectively man all the ATC units across the country.
