The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has begun to upgrade navigational facilities at the Kaduna Airport to absorb the increased volume of traffic to be diverted from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja as from March 8.
Speaking in Lagos, NAMA’s general manager, safety management systems/quality assurance, Mr. Mathew Lawrence Pwajok said the agency “is deploying both equipment and personnel to strategic areas of need to ensure a seamless flow of traffic at the airport during the six-week period.”
He stated that NAMA had started to install a digital instrument landing system (ILS) at the Kaduna airport which will undergo flight calibration along with the Very High Frequency Omni-directional Radio Range (VOR) already installed to ensure their accuracy.
“NAMA is also currently conducting a safety assessment of the entire Kaduna airport to ensure that it conforms to international safety standards, just as new equipment is being procured for the control tower under construction while a mobile control tower is to be deployed to the airport to support the old control tower already in use.
“Abuja radar is also going to be used to provide radar surveillance of traffic moving in and out of Kaduna to provide safety and efficiency of flight operations, new generating sets are to be installed to provide secondary power supply to the navigational aids, even as he said cooling systems are to be installed soon,” said Pwajok.
He also said the agency had already deployed to the airport some other facilities including a low level wind shear alerting system and cooling systems.
Besides, he said Performance Based Navigation (PBN) procedures for satellite based navigation capability had been published for aircraft that are equipped to use for approach and landing rather that the ground aids.
In the area of personnel, the safety management systems manager said aeronautical information services (AIS), communications, air traffic control, engineering officers and some other personnel would be deployed to Kaduna Airport to complement the available manpower at the airport throughout the duration of the Abuja Airport closure.
