Kevin O'Toole/JOHANNESBURG
Fears about air safety over Africa are not new, but a year ago the issue hit the headlines worldwide, following pilot complaints that air traffic control (ATC) was either inadequate or simply absent over much of the continent.
An image painted by the media was one of ATC in chaos, with air misses rife and accidents waiting to happen. It is a piece of "conventional wisdom" which clearly irritates Trevor Fox, technical director for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Africa. Based in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, he is a veteran of the effort to improve African air safety and is more familiar than most with the continent's ATC problems. Yet he also believes that the ensuing public outcry missed its mark in at least two key areas.
The first is the assumption that the problems are endemic across the whole continent. Fox says that IATA's own analysis shows that the rise in air traffic incident reports - and he is keen to point out that they were not air misses - centred on a handful of countries in central Africa. Among them are the sometimes war-torn states of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Zaire), the People's Republic of Congo, and Chad. Add Nigeria, and these states accounted for over half of the 70 incidents reported by an alarmed pilot community over Africa in 1996.
The wars and political instability which have beset central Africa over the past few years have played their part, but Fox argues that the underlying cause of increased incidents has come with a surge in north-south traffic which has followed South Africa's return to the world stage. That too has included South African Airways gaining new freedom to overfly the continent rather than make its way around the coast.
The concern, as Fox admits, is that the pilot reports are a clear sign that the ATC systems are failing to cope with present levels of traffic demand, let alone allow room for further growth. "Doing nothing is not an option," he says, delivering a message which appears to be hitting the mark in the countries affected.
This dovetails neatly with the second impression that Fox would like to quash - that there is little or nothing being done to rectify the problems. Even as the International Federation of Airline Pilot Associations (IFALPA) was launching its campaign to highlight the shortfalls - a campaign which Fox himself agrees has helped to focus minds - IATA and others were beginning to tackle the core issues of poor communications and crumbling infrastructures.
IFALPA itself is now part of that continuing process, together with the International Civil Aviation Organisation and inter-state groupings such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) area and ASECNA, which represent the French-speaking states located in west Africa.
Perhaps surprisingly after two decades of bitter civil war, the clearest success story has been that of Angola. One evident advantage is that its civil aviation authority, ENANA, is a commercial operation, largely independent of the vagaries of local politics.
CASHFLOW NEEDED
As a first step, IATA signed an ATC billing and collection agreement with the country nearly three years ago, ensuring that badly needed cash flows through to pay for infrastructure improvements.
Fox says that such a system typically raises the rate of fee recovery to anything around 85-90% from little more than 40%. He adds that the harsh reality is that, in some African states, charges are simply not high enough to pay for the necessary service levels.
ENANA has already begun using the cash to upgrade its systems. New VHF navigation beacon/distance measuring equipment and a new instrument landing system are coming on line this month, to join a revamped control centre and tower at Luanda.
Equally crucially, communications have been overhauled to give the air to ground links that have been at the heart of pilot concerns. "We're confident that, at this rate of progress, Angola will be among the best in Africa in a couple of years," says Fox.
Angola has also put in place direct speech with neighbouring air traffic services (ATS) centres, using the very small aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite telecommunication system as part of the wider project being run in the SADC. Where VSAT communications are unavailable, ENANA has links through the Inmarsat system.
It is part of IATA's aim to extend VHF coverage along the entire African north-south trunk route. "Some have said that the goal isn't realistic, but, with the support of satellite links through VSAT stations, it is happening," says Fox.
The war which led to Zaire's name change has also left the country with some persistent problems, but IATA hopes to be able to repeat some of its Angolan success. A billing agreement was signed last year and priorities have been agreed with the new transport minister. The country should also have the SADC VSAT system in place this month.
IATA is also working closely with ASECNA. Three-quarters of the airspace in Chad is already covered by VHF, helped by the commissioning of three new stations in December, and plans have been agreed with ASECNA to extend coverage to 90% by 2000. The number of controllers has been increased by 50% over the last year and communications are beginning to grow with neighbours, including Nigeria, says Fox. Further improvements are in train, including pressure for radar installations.
Another example of co-operation between IATA and ASECNA is in filling the hole in the Congo, where the war has put the Brazzaville ATS centre off-line for a year. Under a contingency plan put in place before the war, coverage has been taken up by neighbouring states.
But the final measure of success in any of these initiatives naturally rests on evidence that African skies are actually becoming safer. The tentative suggestion from the latest round of incident reporting statistics is that the figures are indeed falling.
ENCOURAGING SIGNS
The total tally of 70 reports that caused the friction two years ago slimmed to 55 in 1997, with the main gains coming along the north-south route. Angola and Niger have virtually disappeared from the critical list, with figures much improved for the new Congo. Chad and Nigeria have so far shown no change, but Fox believes the omens are good.
Two further pieces of encouraging analysis have emerged from the 1997 returns. The number of reports appears to have fallen steadily throughout the year as new initiatives came on stream, so that the annual totals perhaps mask the full extent of the improvement by year-end. A tentative analysis so far in 1998 suggests that the gains have continued.
The decline in pilot reports also comes at a time when IATA is attempting to raise the levels of incident reporting to uncover deficiencies and to start looking for remedies.
Fox cautions that this drive, together with increased traffic flows, could see the number of reports rise in future, but, for the time being at least, there is welcome evidence that Africa is moving in the right direction. "We're not saying that there are no problems, but we believe we have the momentum with us," he adds.
Source: Flight International
