The need for the Federal Government to speed up the completion of the automation of the Aeronautical Information Service AIS in the country took the burner as the Nigeria Aviation industry celebrates the World AIS Day.
Since the commencement of the AIS Automation project in the year 2000, the project is said to have attained 60% completion, a situation stakeholders have described not good for safety.
President, Aeronautical Information Management Association of Nigeria AIMAN Mr. Williams Ngerem speaking at this year’s AIS Day in Lagos, called on the Minister of state, aviation to approve a special intervention fund for the speedy completion of the automation project in order yo ensure enhanced safety and efficiency in the Nigerian Airspace and to bring Nigeria at par with other Western and African nation’s that have made laudable advancement s in this regard.
He noted that despite steps taken so far to deliver the project, there were challenges that needed to be addressed as quickly as possible.
“The database is the bedrock for all the systems that will be used in generating Aeronautical Information products and this is extremely critical to the success of the AIS Automation project. The integrated database is based on the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model,AIXM.
Ngerem said unfortunately, no AIS personnel had been trained on AIXM to understand the basic concept and technicalities involved.
He regretted that despite the importance of AIS to air safety, the aeronautical Message Handling system, AMHS, which was the gateway that the AIS Automation would ride on had been discovered that the factory acceptance test was yet to be carried out.
According to him, out of the 245 AIS personnel in NAMA, only 13 AIS staff were trained on the Avitech software against the average 200 personal required to run the Automation.
“There is therefore a serious need for more trainings of AIS personnel towards the transition from AIS to AIM to meet the required standards. A conducive working environment is equally crucial to the automation project as this will play a key role in ensuring the highest performance and professionalism of personnel”.
The theme for the World AIS Day is, “The benefits of the Automation of the Aeronautical Information Management”
