Members of the National Aeronautical Communications Association of Nigeria (NACAN ) are not happy with the management of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) for not appointing any member of Airtraffic Communications Department as an Airspace Manager since the last one retired in 2015.
In a communique issued at the end of the associations 6th annual general meeting in Benin City, Edo state, NACAN noted that Prior to 2015, three Communicators were Airspace Managers in Zaria, Ilorin and Uyo.
The communique signed by Nkambo George and Famuyiro Kayode, president and secretary respectively, NACAN appealed that going forward, conversion of officers from other departments to Airtraffic Communications should not exceed those on salary grade level 08 to forestall succession bottleneck in order to restore fairness, justice and industrial harmony.
It re-echoed the poor state of radios (5872KHZ & 5879KHZ) frequencies in Communication Centres.
According to them, aeronautical fixed stations hardly exchange traffic beyond 0800utc due to bad or no Radios. “Similarly, these Fixed Stations are without AFTN Offices even after repeated calls by the stations for one. They are: – Bauchi, Dutse, Birnin Kebbi, Jalingo and Bayelsa”
The Conference also resolved that under no guise should AFTN be handled by any Fixed Station outside the stipulated ICAO standards and recommended practices (SARPs).
According to the communique NACAN noted that Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) as enshrined in ICAO ANNEX 10 Vol. II were being eroded adding that the long period of none employment into the department for twenty-three years between 1989-2011 accounted for the above as the few available hands perform duties beyond ICAO acceptable limit of at least six hours for effective concentration
