Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) said it would this week submit a detailed turnaround plan following the near collapse of its systems which risked the country’s airspace being downgraded, after a “festival of errors” shut down smaller local airports while the malfunction of oceanic transponders on Atlantic and Mediterranean waters raised the ire of the US.

ATNS head of corporate affairs and communications, Mphilo Dlamini, said yesterday that the plan indicating budget allocation, time frames, and technical capacity required was on schedule to be submitted to Transport Minister Barbara Creecy, who had convened an urgent oversight meeting with aviation entities ATNS, Airports Company South Africa and the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) on the ongoing flight delays at various airports.

Creecy emphasised the need for ATNS to get to the root cause of this problem, and mandated the entity to urgently develop a comprehensive plan costed with realistic time frames, as well as indicate the technical capacity required to review all flight instrument procedures.

“The plan is ready to be submitted to the minister for approval. The deadline is this week and we will meet it,” Dlamini said.

Industry sources said the South African airspace was at the risk of downgrades by international watchdogs due to a “festival of errors”, varying from poor maintenance of runway lights to the recent suspension of ATNS which forced airlines to incur additional expenses in alternative arrangements.

They said the drop in standards, mainly due to infrastructure maintenance related issues, raised concerns among international airlines as they could no longer confidently project return flights into the country and were also without a formal platform to voice grievances.

“ATNS suspended operations. It is accepted that they have problems with money capacity or handling frequencies. That is a dangerous precedent, especially after the incident when two oceanic transponders on the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans failed to connect and pilots had to navigate by communicating with each other,” an aviation official said.

“The USA complained. There is a high possibility these problems cannot be tolerated anywhere else in the world.”

South Africa is under the spotlight, as last year it chaired the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a specialised agency of the UN that co-ordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.

“You cannot chair ICAO and then have a festival of errors including faulty transponders, hydraulic fuel spillages on runways, faulty runway lights, and audits that raise concerns by the Federal Aviation Administration in the US. Airlines are wary of flying here now. They get saddled with additional expenses and for us that is lost revenue, especially in the tourism industry,” the source said.

Aviation analyst Phuthego Mojapele said the country’s standards had to align with international norms or risk being flagged as a risky destination.

“The US … flagged the issue of responders and they have also done an audit that raised concerns. In aviation there are no disclaimers or marginal downgrades. The pass rate is 100% because this is directly affecting human lives,” Mojapele said.

Dlamini said of measures taken thus far at OR Tambo International Airport, where six procedures were suspended, a total of four have been approved by SACAA, while the rest are going through final adjustments before being resubmitted to SACAA. He said at George Airport, out of two runway procedures, one was approved by SACAA and was already operational.

“The pending one is expected to be operational by next week subject to SACAA’s approval. At Cape Town International Airport, two procedures have been approved by SACAA, and ATNS is awaiting the upliftment of suspension by SACAA,” Dlamini said.

“In Polokwane International Airport, the procedures were submitted. However, these were returned by SACAA for final safety adjustments and shall be resubmitted to SACAA in a few days. In Kimberley and Umtata Airports, procedures are currently going through internal quality controls before submission to SACAA.”

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