Long-haul carriers could soon become involved in modernising Africa's dilapidated air-traffic-control (ATC) infrastructure, following a call by South African Airways (SAA) for airlines regularly flying in African airspace to take a more pro-active safety role.
At the same time, South Africa has reported success in improving ground communications between African ATC centres.
"Our initial thought was that maybe we could each adopt a country, provide what they required, and work in conjunction with them to upgrade their infrastructure," says Graham Rochet, SAA's head of flight safety. "However, it has quickly become apparent that we cannot do this alone, but need to have the official backing of a major international body."
Rochet says that a letter has been sent to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) seeking support for the concept and asking the organisation to take it forward as an IATA project. As soon as that backing is in place, the aim is to move towards partnering.
"If there are costs involved, where necessary we could make the finance available up-front and recover it from reductions in over-flight fees," he adds.
Initial signs of support have been strong, says Rochet, with 12 carriers attending a preliminary meeting and a small nucleus of interested airlines emerging, including Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, Ethiopian, SAA and Swissair,.
Meanwhile, South Africa's Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) reports successful trials of its Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) concept, which involves the use of satellite communications to link ATC centres in neighbouring states.
Full implementation across all sub-Saharan SADC states awaits the signatures of foreign ministers of the countries involved. Connectivity between the VSAT system and similar infrastructure in the West African ASECNA states is expected to be largely operational by mid-1998.
ATNS will also begin offering Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS) to airline customers within a matter of weeks. The agency has installed a single Thomson-CSF FANS 1 workstation at the Johannesburg ATC centre.
"We are at the stage of signing contracts with a number of carriers, and within a week or two we will be up and running," says project manager Arthur Bradshaw. Initial coverage will limited to the South Atlantic and Southern Indian Ocean, but it can be extended.
Source: Flight International
