The government has acknowledged that state-owned Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) is beset by perennial problems — ranging from critical staff shortages to negligence in maintaining aviation systems — that cause flight delays and cancellations at South Africa’s major airports.
However, the Department of Transport, which oversees the affairs of ATNS, is still not prepared to say whether the entity’s problems pose a flight safety risk.
Several aviation players — airline bosses, passengers and pilots — approached Daily Maverick, raising concerns about the unprecedented number of flight delays and cancellations in 2024. Domestic airlines FlySafair and Airlink laid the blame squarely on ATNS, a state-owned enterprise (SOE) established in 1993 that is responsible for directing traffic in South Africa’s skies.
Read more: Mayday! Serial SA flight delays expose systemic air traffic failures that threaten aviation safety
The problems at ATNS prompted Transport Minister Barbara Creecy to establish, on 12 December 2024, a committee to investigate the problems besetting the SOE that have resulted in flight delays and cancellations. The committee, which is comprised of aviation experts Wrenelle Stander, Sibusiso Nkabinde and Peter Marais, will remain in place for six months to advise the ATNS board and executive management on the implementation of its recommendations.
The panel recently concluded its preliminary diagnostic report, which has not been made public, but the Department of Transport said the report revealed the key problems at ATNS. The department’s spokesperson told Daily Maverick that only the final report would be released to the public and not the preliminary diagnostic report. Creecy had given the panel of experts until the end of January to finalise their preliminary diagnostic report.
According to the transport department, the report revealed that ATNS faces “critical staff shortages” and its communications, navigation and surveillance systems to control air traffic are “not as reliable as they should be”.
An investigation by Daily Maverick found that ATNS has suffered a loss of skills, mainly qualified air traffic controllers, radar controllers and instrument flight procedure designers (responsible for facilitating safe and efficient flight operations, especially during bad weather).
The ATNS headcount for workers involved in air traffic navigation services has reduced from more than 900 in 2012 to 646 in 2023, according to an analysis of its annual reports spanning more than a decade.
During this period air travel demand among consumers in the rest of Africa (also touching South Africa-based airports) increased by 13.2%, according to the International Air Transport Association, making the smooth functioning of ATNS more important than ever.
Crucially, the preliminary diagnostic report by the experts found that ATNS instrument flight procedures had been suspended as a result of them not being maintained, inferring negligence by the SOE. Instrument flight procedures are instructions or guidelines that pilots use to navigate and control an aircraft, especially in situations where visibility is limited, such as during poor weather, at night, or in controlled airspace.
These procedures often include steps for take-off, landing, and manoeuvring based on readings from instruments such as airspeed indicators and navigation systems.
Without ATNS instrument flight procedures, pilots have a much more difficult — and potentially dangerous — time maintaining control of the aircraft in conditions where they cannot see outside, such as in fog, clouds, or bad weather.
In 2024, ATNS was forced to withdraw about 326 instrument flight procedures after failing to file paperwork to the aviation regulator for mandatory regular review.
‘Damning findings’
An aviation industry expert said despite these “damning findings”, the panel of experts had not made a finding on whether ATNS-specific issues posed a flight safety risk at airports in South Africa.
“Ordinarily, such adverse findings, related to capacity and skills, would call into question the ability of an organisation to discharge its mandate — in this case, the ability of ATNS to ensure that planes are safe in the skies,” said the expert, who could not be named because they are involved in aviation policy-making.
Creecy has asked the ATNS board to implement recommendations contained in the preliminary diagnostic report. The recommendations include ATNS accelerating the recruitment of critically needed air traffic service staff, flight procedure designers, surveyors, technical support staff, engineers and training instructors. She gave ATNS between “18 months up to three years” to fully implement the recommendations related to staffing problems.
Other recommendations include:
- ATNS undertaking an urgent upgrade of communication, navigation and surveillance systems. This will include enhancements to the air traffic management system, air traffic flow management system and communication systems.
- Taking steps to ensure the maintenance of instrument flight procedures which were the root cause of the most recent flight delays.
- Prioritising and improving governance processes to enable single-point accountability for efficient implementation.
The problems around the flight instrument procedures have vexed the industry, especially at the George Airport in the Western Cape, which is no longer an alternative landing destination for Cape Town because it lacks critical air traffic control staff and navigation systems.
Aaron Munetsi, the CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa, said: “ATNS failed to deliver on its assurances that [the suspended 326 flight instrument] procedures would be reinstated by the summer peak travel season for priority key airports such as George. As we have seen this week at George, the unavailability of the relevant instrument flight procedure disqualified the use of the instrument landing system for Runway 11 — the runway in use when the winds are from the east.
“This resulted in numerous delayed and cancelled flights to and from George, aggravation for travellers and additional operating costs for airlines.” DM