South Africa's second-largest political party is calling for a stronger response from the country's Ministry of Transport on weaknesses in the air traffic control business, and calling for the release of a report detailing safety and reliability concerns.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy recently ordered an investigation into the “preventive halt” of Air Transport and Navigation Services Chief Nosipho Mdawe and the achievement of his duties.
But this doesn't satisfy the Democratic Alliance, part of a 10-member coalition government following last year's general election. This is “not a real commitment to systemic reform, but merely an attempt to save the face.”
“Until Congress has provided a full report detailing all the flaws in ATNS, its oversight functions are severely damaged,” the party adds, arguing that Creecy cannot serve as an “investigator, judge, jury.”
Three months after establishing a committee to investigate the root causes of safety and service delivery issues, Creecy ordered the suspension on March 12th, providing updates on efforts to “stabilize and rebuild” ATNS.
The committee found “critical” staffing shortages within the air traffic services department, the downsides in reliability of communication, navigation and surveillance systems, and the outage of flight procedures for lapsed maintenance. Creecy said the actions adopted include accelerated recruitment of personnel and procurement for system upgrades.
Updates to instrument flight procedures that have caused delays at many airports are particularly urgent concern.
Shortly before the committee was formed, Mdawe acknowledged at a stakeholder event in early December that the procedural situation was causing “significant inconvenience” and attributed to several factors, including “poaching” by procedural design experts and technical staff by other airlines.
Creecy said ATNS was tasked with maintaining procedures and ensuring they were ready before the compliance deadline alternatives expired in early April. However, she admits that it is “impossible” to meet this deadline, and that the procedure is not ready to fly in time.
“As a result, urgent measures are being taken to prioritize minimal impact procedures at major airports,” she says in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and others.
“The focus will be on accelerating contracts with designers for international flight procedures and charts of specialists. Other airports may face the impact of access during poor visibility and bad weather.”
With procedural approvals at many airports over the past few months, ATNS has issued several notifications regarding progress and warnings of unavailable navigation assistance at certain facilities during dangerous weather.
Roger Foster, the retired chief of regional carrier Airlink, criticized the situation in his farewell speech on March 14th.
“As an airline, we are still denied the use of 300 equipment flight procedures, which are completely sufficient to be used until mid-July 2024,” he told the Airlines Representative Committee at the South Africa Summit.
Foster said Air Navigation Services has not submitted re-validation documents to civil aviation regulators on time, and as a result, it will be a “significant impact” for the country's major airports if the April deadline for alternative compliance expires.
He says prioritizing remedies at large airports “are definitely a disadvantage for small airports.”
Creecy's guarantee is “encouragement,” but adds, “it's now a case of closing a stable door after the horse is bolted.” He claims that air voyage services are “a crisis waiting for it to happen,” and he argues that every few years it is essential to keeping the situation in a recurring way that “we don't drop the first crash of our heads.”
The Democratic Union added that South Africa's aviation infrastructure states are “brooding” and that their weaknesses are not only “inconvenient” but also “substantial threats” to tourism and investment.
“We need thorough investigation and responsibility from all involved parties,” party traffic spokesman Chris Hunsinger added that he will formally request the Transport Portfolio Committee that Creecy appears to be explaining the situation.
