NAMA to speed up automation of AIS, AIM

Th e Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has pledged to accelerate the digitalization of aeronautical information service (AIS) in view of the centrality of data automation to the overall safety of civil aviation. Th e Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu made the commitment during the commemoration of the World AIS Day held at the agency’s headquarters in Lagos in view of critical deliverables of the aeronautical information management (AIM) project such as the enhancement of e-NOTAM, e-Flight Planning, e-AIP, e-TOD, e-Charts, e-Flight briefi ng, among others.

“Given that it represents a global migration to a dynamic data oriented AIM system that facilitates the timely exchange of aeronautical information in an accurate and standardized format from anywhere to everywhere globally, on real time basis, the automation project is a must-do for NAMA,” he said. Akinkuotu said for the dream of AIS Automation to be realized, it behoves staff of the department to put in their best to see that their service both at the individual and group levels remains invaluable. He said the staff could achieve that through extensive research and paper presentation at seminars targeted at enriching the system and taking it to the next level. Akinkuotu promised to open his doors to professional and technical advice which he said would give him the needed guidance in taking key decisions. He thanked the AIS staff for their diligent, hard work and dedication to duty.

“AIS remains one of the most critical departments in the agency even though they are hardly given the prominence they deserve, because their job most often, is behind-the-scene,” he said. He said the absence of AIS in the system will bring about chaos in the entire civil aviation. Earlier in his remarks, the general manager, AIS, Mr. Kabir Gusau appealed to NAMA management to consider the periodic training and retraining of AIS personnel. He said the training “will bring staff up to speed with modern trends in a dynamic aviation industry and also prepare them to eff ectively embrace automation when fully deployed.”

He also expressed the need for the agency, through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), to ensure that qualifi ed AIS personnel were licensed saying it would bolster them towards hard work, commitment to duty and enhanced productivity. Observed in 191 contracting states globally, the World AIS Day is a day providers of the service, regulatory authorities, users of the service, other aviation stakeholders, as well as AIS systems manufacturers, critically assess the performance of the service and recommend appropriate measures for its enhancement. In Nigeria, the 2017 World AIS Day with the theme ‘Effi cient Data Management System that Supports Digital Aeronautical Information Services’ was celebrated simultaneously in all parts of the country

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