23rd February, 2016
Also streamlined are the Lagos Area Control Centre (ACC) and Port Harcourt Approach Control Unit (APC).
The information is contained in the weekly publication of NAMA’s Public Affairs Department issued on Tuesday in Abuja.
The publication said that the decision was in line with the Agency’s determination to provide seamless air navigation services and enhance safety of air travel within the nation’s airspace.
It stated that letters of procedures spelt out the condition under which the responsibility for provision of air traffic services should be shared.
This, according to the publication, would be shared between the parent Area Control Centre and the subordinate Approach Control Units.
“It also specifies flow control procedures during periods of congestion, just as it specifies procedures to follow in the event of total or partial communication failure between air traffic control services unit and an aircraft, among others.”
The publication then quoted Mr Ifeanyi Okwor, the NAMA General Manager, Air Traffic Control Operations, as saying
that the signing of Letters of Procedures was informed by recent changes in the structure of the airspace.
Okwor said that the extension of en-route radar service to 24 hours daily and other changes that NAMA had effected lately was captured in the Letters of Procedure.
He added that the relationship between the parent control centres and approach control units was a requirement of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
The relationship, he said, was targeted at enhancing seamless and safe air traffic management.