Air traffic controllers lament deplorable state of control towers at airports

Nigeria’s air traffic controllers have bemoaned the deplorable control towers and poor working environment across many of the country’s airports especially the Kaduna airport.

This is just as the leadership of the controllers association condemned the poor state of communication facilities including the terrestrial frequency challenges the controllers are presently grappling with.

Stating this fact at the weekend, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATAC), Mr Yomi Agoro, in a bare-it-all interview with aviation journalists, decried the dilapidated statuses of many control towers in airports across the country.

According to Agoro, many control towers at airports in Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto Calabar and elsewhere do not have chairs for controllers to sit and do their jobs, washrooms to obey the call of nature and in some cases, they have leaking roofs and the personnel have to use umbrellas to protect them from the rain and sun.

“Calabar is in a serious deplorable state, even though, we heard the management is looking to put things in order. Katsina today when you have a one-man watch and there is no facility for him to go and ease himself. He is a human being, just to urinate, are we saying he is going to get a bottle to urinate? Or descend the tower? If he descends, he is in breach of his professional ethics. So, what do you expect that person to do?

“In Katsina, no restroom was provided, nothing, we are not just making claims, all these are verifiable these are facts that are there. Also, you mentioned Kano, Kano has a fine building and that is all. The facilities inside unfortunately is a failure.”

Calling many control towers at the airports as nothing short of watch rooms, Agoro declared: “As I am talking to you now, some airports do not even have functioning equipment. Even, the Kaduna we are talking about, Kaduna does not have a control tower. What they are using there is a watch room (for firefighters), which is not built for that purpose and we have been calling on the government to do something.

“We go to Sokoto, once it rains today, controllers will go to look for umbrellas to sit at the control tower and what is it, some of the control towers attached to the terminal buildings some were ceded to FAAN, while those standing alone were with NAMA, but we have approached the two organizations. The lift too, NAMA will be waiting for FAAN to put it in order, FAAN will say is it our staff that are working there and that is simply due to bureaucracy and you now discover controllers will continue to suffer.

“We are still battling with terrestrial radio frequency, communication here and there. Calabar is there; there is no airport you will go to today that you would say things are working 80 per cent.

“Verify, everything we say, everything we mentioned here, we are not being emotional, we are angry because if the system demands I put my whole life into it, I expect the system to provide me with the working tools to be able to do that. I’ve not spent close to two years ab initio in the training school for me to qualify as a professional and for me to be frustrated by a system that does not want me to give my best.

“Do you know that if you get to some control towers, ordinary chairs to sit, we have to go and beg? This year, I have met the NAMA management asking them that ordinary chairs we can’t have for controllers who will sit 6-12 hours. Are you saying these persons will not have back pains and again these people have climbed the multitude of stairs because the elevators are not there or don’t work, it’s not ideal. Even, when our members complain to us, we are in tears we don’t know what to say.”