Why We Retained Retired Air Traffic Controllers – NAMA MD

• The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has brought back retired air traffic controllers to address the manpower shortage
• NAMA is also working with the military and a private organization to train more air traffic controllers

Mr. Tayib Odunowo, Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), stated that the agency brought back retired air traffic controllers to address the manpower shortage.

According to reports, the airspace agency has been dealing with a shortage of air traffic controllers, the industry’s core technical personnel.

They are stationed at all airports to monitor the airspace and control aircraft movements within the Nigerian airspace.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents’ annual conference, the MD stated that 100 controllers have been hired and are undergoing training.

He did, however, state that the technical personnel reabsorbed were those who “retired because of years in service, not age.”

These are people who still have a lot of fire power in them. So, we have brought them back. Secondly we have recruited 100 controllers now and we have started training. The challenge we are having is the space constraint in NCAT. So, we have had an MOU with the Rector of NCAT. So they are going to do a hybrid.

Thirdly right now, we are working with the military. The military also has a school where they train controllers.

They expressed interest in helping us. And then lastly, we are bringing in an organisation to train our controllers to get all their classes of licenses in six months. So, we have a four-point approach that we are working on to quickly close the gap.

He stated that the agency had deployed manpower to address communication issues in the airspace.

So, the third one is that we are doing what is called an Aeronautical Information Service (AIS) automation process, which is the backbone of everything we are talking about, he said.

The MD also revealed that the ongoing multilateration project to address airspace complexity and provide a dedicated communication, navigation, and surveillance system is 90% complete.
According to him, the Niger Delta region has Nigeria’s busiest airspace.

If you look at the proximity of all the airports, you have all these low flying objects. What NAMA is trying to do is to make sure that anything that flies in the Delta region is picked by the Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS).

But right now, we intend to deploy Multilateration Technology (MLAT) all over Nigeria, starting from the Delta region.