Nigeria needs 700 air traffic controllers to up airspace operations, says NATCA

The Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), has called for additional 700 workforce to man Nigeria’s airspace to deepen safety standards.

National President of the body, Mr. Victor Eyaru, who spoke to media executives in Lagos ahead of the 59th International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA), Africa and Middle East Region Meeting and Workshop in Abuja this week said that from increasing the number of its members is now crucial to strengthen efficiency in air service delivery.

NATCA boss made it clear that the association needs an additional 700 people to boost air traffic operations in the country’s airspace, as there are only 400 air traffic controllers currently manning various control towers across airports in the country.

National Daily gathered that IFATCA is an international federation of air traffic controller associations, established in 1961 as the largest and most comprehensive representative body for air traffic control in the world.
According to Eyaru, “Federal government needs to begin the employment of at least between 50 and 100 air traffic controllers annually to ensure that there is no vacuum created as a result of aging workforce in the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency. At least, additional 700 air traffic controllers will ease the work”.

Though he commended the performance of NAMA engineers for keeping the radars working, he raised the dangers of not accessing relevant spare parts for the radars in the country to prevent controllers from going back to procedural air traffic control in the country.

It would be recalled NAMA had recently cried out saying that lack of relevant spare parts for upgrading radar services is a big issue.

Eyaru noted that additional radar and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), which periodically broadcasts location and altitude information to air traffic controllers, are needed to work with the procedural control and effective stability of radar intelligence.