The National Association of Air Traffic Engineers (NAAE), has warned that inadequate training and shortage of engineers in the Nigerian aviation industry may cause crisis for the sector.
Engr. Ishata Dung, President NAAE gave the warming over the weekend in Lagos during the commemoration of the 2020 world Air Traffic Safety Electronic Personnel (ATSEP), held in Lagos.
Dung lamented that the inadequate trained personnel was having a huge effect on the few available engineers who he said are overstretched in discharging their duties, adding that it was also dragging backward the sector.
He noted that as a result of the shortage of engineers, some of them travel from Lagos to Port Harcourt and other airports when issues arise to address some challenges that surpassed engineers on ground there.
He called on the Federal Government especially the management of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to employ the services of more professional engineers for the agency.
Besides, Dung mentioned inadequate operational vehicles in its stations across the country’s airports as another challenge facing the engineers in NAMA.
According to him, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) required that each of the Communication, Navigation and Surveillance department in each airport was supposed to have a dedicated operational vehicle attached to it to facilitate its operations.
Dung, who argued that apart from the above challenges the management of NAMA had improved tremendously on the communication equipment across the country, said: ”We have adequate navigation surveillance coverage within the Nigeria airspace. I wouldn’t say we have enough manpower, but the status is not also too poor. We keep drawing the attention of the management of NAMA to some of these issues.”
NAMA has about 500 engineers across the airports in the country and still required more hands for effective coverage, Dung said.
Dung said over 150 engineers have been licensed since he came on board three years ago.
