Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) is committed to meeting deadlines, “especially towards the festive season”, as it continues to make its way through a backlog of instrument flight procedures that caused significant flight delays and disruptions throughout the year.
Speaking at the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) annual general assembly in Paarl last week Friday (October 18), Carel Gersbach, Senior Manager: Technical Planning and Quality at ATNS, said the organisation is implementing measures to work through issues that have plagued the industry since April, including the causes of East London’s King Phalo Airport being the most recent casualty.
While the action plan presented to Transport Minister Barbara Creecy and the industry includes specific dates and milestones for priority airports until November this year, the targeted date to restore all procedures to working order is the end of 2025, he said.
“Our commitment to the industry is that we will work towards honouring all the deadlines especially towards the festive season.”
AASA CEO Aaron Munetsi called out the “devastating and almost unrecoverable impact of the recent withdrawal of instrument flight procedures at some of our airports”.
He said: “We cannot over-emphasise the devastating impact of such occurrences. Our airlines bear the costs – diversion, customer experience recovery, operating costs and fuel are among the immediate costs.”
One member reported 3 892 flight delays, 77 cancellations and 12 diversions between July 19 and October 9.
“The cumulative delay for just that one airline was an eye-watering 91 075 minutes or 63.25 days. This is unacceptable by any measure,” Munetsi said.
Gersbach said the key contributing factor to the backlog has been lack of internal resources. This is being addressed through a student training programme and appointment of contract workers.
Five students are currently being trained while another five are due to be added at the end of the year.
“When the training is completed, there is still a long process to certify them for procedure design activities,” Gersbach said.
Contract workers, locally and overseas, have been appointed to work through the backlogs. However, this presented some challenges in different time zones and certification by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA).
The pressure to meet deadlines has also resulted in SACAA returning a number of procedures for changes.
“We have realised that the more we try to squeeze the proverbial blood out of the rock, the more returns we receive from the CAA in terms of things not done as they should have been,” Gersbach added.
He said monitoring and quality control processes are being put in place to address the issue.
ATNS reports to the Minister of Transport and provides industry updates every two weeks. It has also briefed Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport about the issues.
“From the highest levels, we are being monitored and assisted,” said Gersbach.
