• The Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy and her Committee of Aviation Experts have outlined interventions the ATNS must implement.
• The organisation must immediately hire critical staff and upgrade its systems.
• The interventions come as a result of multiple issues coming to the fore at the ATNS in 2024.

The Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy and the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) board of directors have announced a raft of interventions the body must implement without delay.

These interventions stem from a preliminary diagnostic report compiled by the minister’s Committee of Aviation Experts which was established on 12th December 2024. The committee was established to investigate the cause of problems that have plagued ATNS including issues surrounding flight instrument procedures.

The report seeks to stablise ATNS as soon as possible.

The interventions highlighted by the committee as being urgent include the following according to a media statement:

• “Accelerate the recruitment of critical staff, including air traffic service staff, flight procedure designers, surveyors, technical support staff, engineers and training instructors. This process will take a period of 18 months up to 3 years to be fully implemented.
• Undertake an urgent upgrade of communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) systems. This will include enhancements of the Air Traffic Management System, Air Traffic Flow Management System and Communication systems.
• Take steps to ensure the maintenance of instrument flight procedures which were the root cause of the most recent flight delays.
• Prioritize and improve governance processes to enable a single point accountability to allow efficient implementation.”

“These recommendations will be implemented immediately by the ATNS Board and management, with the advice of the Intervention Committee. My office will monitor progress closely,” Creecy said.

The minister added that she will be meeting with captains of the aviation industry to call for their support and co-operation.

Back in August 2024 ATNS stopped all instrument approaches to many local airports. This lead to delays and speculation that strike action may have lead to the stoppage. Regardless, the problems drew the ire of the minister and so investigations began.

In its investigation, the committee found that the are critical staff shortages in the Air Traffic Service, critical CNS systems are not as reliable as the ought to be and flight procedures are suspend due to a lack of maintenance. The committee includes Wrenelle Stander, Sibusiso Nkabinde and Peter Marais and it will function for a period of six months from inception.

This week the importance of air traffic control was highlighted when an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided with a US Army helicopter carrying three soldiers at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington. According to reports, the collision may have happened as a result of cuts to the USA’s air traffic systems and personnel. The incident is still be investigated

It’s good news then that Creecy is being proactive about local air traffic navigation.