Air traffic engineers call for equipment replacement, more manpower

THE National Association of Air Traffic Engineers (NAAE) has called on the federal government to take advantage of technological revolution and advancement in global aviation community to deploy new Navigational Aids (NAVAIDS) equipment with spare parts to replace ageing ones.

  In a statement issued recently by Ebenzer Makanjuola and Francis Omeje, President and Secretary of NAAE respectively, they also called for the engagement of more manpower to enhance seamless operations in the country.

  According to NAAE, NAVAIDS facilities deployed by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) ranked among the best in class and operated in accordance with internationally recommended standard and procedures.

They pledged to continue to ensure the optional performance of the equipment irrespective of their locations in order to achieve credibility and reliability of the facilities and safety of the country’s airspace.

  The Engineers noted that government in the past few years continually embarked on massive deployment of Air Navigational equipment adding that as managers of the equipment, they remained serviceable, fully functional and reliable to the end users.

  According to them, they were fully involved in skill deployment within available resources in ensuring the success of the ongoing Aeronautical Information Service automation project and controller Pilot Data link connection of NAMA.

They said the association was aware of misleading information perpetrated by some group of agitators aimed at frustrating government effort in providing state of the art navigational facilities.

According to them every group has the right to demand but such demand should not be premised on the state of equipment bearing in mind that they were agitating for a better welfare.