SA's Air Traffic System Crashes

Danger: Failure to Maintain Management Ecosystem Is Clear, Says Minister

- Hein Kaiser

Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has stepped in to fix Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS).

Years of neglect, mismanagement and governance failures have left the entity stripped of skilled workers and scrambling to ensure that aircraft operate on time and safely.

The intervention follows a December 2024 report on the state-run provider to Creecy.

The team appointed to investigate the company identified severe shortages of air traffic controllers and flight procedure designers, outdated flight navigation procedures, unreliable communication systems and weaknesses in safety governance as cause for concern.

The investigation outcome underlined a series of reports by The Citizen in October and November last year.

At the time, ATNS was purportedly operating with less than half its required staff capacity, forcing controllers to work longer with minimal support.