Yemisi Izuora
In a bid to continuously increase manpower, 40 Air Traffic Controllers of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), have scaled the rating tests by the Nigerian by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA).
The Air Traffic Controllers who cut across different cadres got their ratings after successfully passing the oral, written and practical examinations conducted in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt as well as Benin airports and supervised by the regulatory authority.
A total of 43 Air Traffic Controllers took part in the rigorous rating examinations held between November and December, 2014 on Aerodrome, Approach, Approach Radar, Area/Airways and Area Control Surveillance. Out of this number, forty were successful while three were not.
The Managing Director of the agency, Engr. Ibrahim Abdulsalam has commended the Air Traffic Controllers for justifying the huge resources invested in the exercise by coming out with an impressive result.
Engr. Abdulsalam, in a statement explained: “as part of management’s strategy to build a robust safety infrastructure across the Nigerian airspace, training and re-training of critical manpower has remained the focal point of his administration.’’
While congratulating the Air Traffic Controllers on their brilliant performance, Engr. Abdulsalam expressed confidence that this latest ratings would further boost the critical manpower need of NAMA especially in Area Radar Control service.
It will be recalled that in its determination to build critical manpower capacity in the area of operations, over 124 Air Traffic Controllers were rated in 2014, just as a batch of 40 ATCs were recently trained on Performance Based Navigation (PBN) Flight Procedures in Cairo, Egypt while another batch of 5 were trained on Wind Shear Equipment handling in Germany.