(Posted 30th October 2025)
The Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) urges the leadership of the Air Traffic Navigation Service (ATNS) to strengthen their collaboration with airlines to determine effective solutions for addressing ongoing challenges related to unavailable instrument flight procedures (IFPs).
These issues, stemming from various factors as highlighted in their (ATNS) industry update, risk causing significant economic consequences. AASA further emphasises the importance of maintaining adequate staffing levels for essential air traffic control and other critical positions.
These disruptions, delays, diversions, and flight cancellations—and their effects on customers, airlines, and entire economies—are far more than a mere inconvenience; they are deeply damaging and simply unacceptable.
We are dealing with an operational crisis, now in its 16th month and with no clear end in sight. This threatens the economic viability of several towns and cities and South Africa’s ability to be a dependable, efficient and competitive trading partner and destination for tourism and investment. The crisis requires a commensurate response with intervention from Cabinet ministers whose portfolios cover entire sectors of the economy that depend on reliable and safe air connectivity.
ATNS’s briefings and updates are always welcome. They must be frank and fully transparent so that with the full disclosure and commitment to detailed time-frames airlines and their customers can plan and manage their businesses and or itineraries with certainty.
Today’s briefing by ATNS’s leadership on the status of suspended IFPs, staffing and critical infrastructure upgrades, as well as the recent publication of its annual report, raises more questions than answers, not least of which are the following:
- If ATNS was able to expedite the reinstatement of an approach procedure for Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA), why is it unable to do the same for the vast majority of the 326IFPs it suspended in July 2024 and the additional procedures suspended on 11 September 2025 and 08 October 2025? In most instances there are no new obstacles requiring revisions to the procedures so revalidation should be a formality.
- What is ATNS doing to ensure that all otherIFPs due to expire in the next 12 months will be renewed in time so that they do not cause additional disruption?
The additional suspensions last month and earlier this month, which include 17 at Cape Town and eight at George, suggest that ATNS is falling further behind in addressing the problem. - The expedited KMIA procedure and several others that were renewed this year have required pilots to “hand amend” the instructions. WhenIFPs are published electronically and displayed digitally, why is ATNS still asking pilots and flight planners to make those adjustments by hand – and inviting errors which raise the safety stakes – instead of publishing them in the correct format?
- What measures – temporary or permanent – has ATNS implemented to enable it to rapidly recruit experienced skilled personnel – including re-hiring ex-ATNS employees who retired or took their skills elsewhere – and deploy them into critical positions? It would be reassuring to know how many people are currently in ATNS’s training pipeline and what are the timeframes for deploying them operationally.
- As the primary providers of income to ATNS through its statutory user charges, our members rightfully ask what recompense could be implemented to at least recover costs that airlines have had, and continue, to incur due to no fault of their own.
Impact of suspended Instrument Flight Procedures
For affected airports where IFPs have been suspended this means take-offs and landings are not permitted when there is mist, low cloud, fog or dense smoke obstructing pilots’ visibility.
Flight schedule disruptions are financial hammer blows to airlines. Customers lose confidence resulting in lost sales, ticket cancellations and refunds. Simultaneously, airlines are saddled with additional costs for taking care of affected passengers, animals in transit, additional fuel, landing, parking and ground handling for diverted flights, additional crew and accelerated maintenance of aircraft and engines due to the unplanned additional flight hours they incur. Airlines also have to pay ATNS for the extra en-route navigation and air traffic control charges associated with any diversions.
These suspensions also have serious harmful economic ramifications for businesses, industry, trade, essential and emergency services as well as peoples’ livelihoods not only in cities such as Kimberley, George, Polokwane, Upington, Bloemfontein, Pietermaritzburg, Mthatha and Richards Bay, but also in Gauteng, Cape Town, Durban and Gqeberha, which are key economic hubs.
ATNS and the Department of Transport must eliminate and prevent these kinds of disruptions and deliver on their mandate of enabling safe, reliable, efficient and accessible passenger and cargo air transport. This will enable airlines to play their role as a catalyst for economic growth, in particular South Africa’s tourism industry, and the creation of much-needed jobs for our youth and women.
Aaron Munetsi
CEO
Airlines Association of Southern Africa
