Nigerian airlines are at the verge of keying into a new navigational system, the Performance Based Navigation (PBN), developed by the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to make flight operations seamless and faster. It helps to reduce flight hours by pilots. PBN sets the level of accuracy, integrity and continuity that the aircraft’s navigation systems will have to meet as well as the required functionality. Within an airspace concept, it also requires that the availability of the navigation infrastructure be considered in supporting the desired navigation performance.
It allows the implementation of airspace structures that take advantage of aircraft being able to fly more flexible, accurate, repeatable and, therefore, deterministic three dimensional flight paths, using onboard equipment capabilities. It has variously been described as reengineering the way people fly. Managing Director of NAMA, Ibrahim Abdulsalam, disclosed that the project had been completed for some time, but regretted that those that fly it are basically the foreign airlines. He stated that the aviation regulatory body, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), is yet to approve it for the local airlines. His words: “I understand that Arik is about to start using the equipment, but I am not too sure about the other airlines, but Arik aircraft are equipped to use it.
“You know we have very efficient routing now that you can take direct routing from Lagos to wherever you are going or wherever you are coming from to Lagos. Those are some of the benefits of PBN, those are some of the benefits of direct routing. It is part of the things we are enjoying at the moment and we hope to even enjoy more subsequently as we move along,” he added. The NAMA chief stated that the equipment had been installed in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja, stressing that the agency’s officials are already conversant with the facilities. “So, maintaining it will not be difficult for us. They trained on it and they have been maintaining the other three stations; so, maintaining this one will not be a problem,” he said.
Abdulsalam further disclosed that major milestone was accomplished last week with the conduct of the Site Acceptance Test of the new Kano Safe Tower project, as well as the Controller-Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC) training. The Safe Tower Project was conceived in 2006 by the Obasanjo regime with the aim of automating the provision of air traffic services at Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt control towers. The project was completed in Abuja and Lagos in 2007, while that of Port Harcourt was completed in 2008. However, the completion of this project was delayed in Kano as a new control tower had to be constructed. The construction of the new Kano control tower was further delayed by the death of the contractor and the subsequent legal issues arising there from.
According to him, following the completion of the construction of the new Kano Control Tower in November 2014, NAMA mobilised AVSATEL to site for the deployment of the safe tower automated air travel management and meteorological systems in January 2015. He explained that shortly after AVSATEL mobilised to site, the Kano Safe Tower project suffered yet another delay as some of the equipment which have been in the warehouse since 2007, had gone obsolete and had to be replaced at additional cost. Despite all the challenges, Abdulsalam expressed joy that the deployment of the system was completed with the required conduct of a site acceptance test.
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