During its annual Africa Conference, which is taking place until 6 September in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) has been advocating regional collaboration and innovation to improve the performance of air traffic management (ATM) across the continent.
Speaking at the conference, Simon Hocquard, director general of CANSO, said: ” As Africa continues to experience rapid growth in air traffic, it is vital that the ATM industry works together to ensure consistent, high levels of service provision across the region.” He added that “AS the CANSO Africa ATM Safety Peer Review Initiative, Mobasa ATFM Roadmap, and joint CNASO/ ICAO efforts on ASBU implementation show, the region is already making huge strides. But we need to continue to grow these collaborative initiatives and accelerate the adoption of innovative procedures and technologies if we are to achieve safe, seamless, and sustainable ATM both now and in the future.”
Industry leaders speaking at the conference, which is exploring the theme ‘Towards a seamless African sky and its impact on the next generation of aviation professionals,’ have identified strong regional collaboration and a commitment to innovation as being key drivers in achiveing the goal of safe, seamless, and sustainable ATM. Enablers addressed include harmonisation and interoperability, air traffic flow management (AFTM), performance based navigation (PBN), aviation system block upgrades (ASBUs), safety management systems (SMS), collaborative decision-making (CDM) and human factors.
Honourable. Eng. Isack Kamwelwe, (M.P) Minister of Works, Transport and Communications, The United Republic of Tanzania, revealed “The anticipated rise in air transportation and rapid transformation of aviation technology call for aviation authorities and airt trafic control agencies to look for better ways to control and offer better services to sustain the sector, and it is my sincere hope that deliberations of this meeting will help to shape the industry.”
