CANSO Africa Conference 2019

Towards a seamless African sky and its impact on the next generation of aviation professionals

The CANSO Africa Conference 2019 was held 2-6 September in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania kindly hosted by Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority.

Africa is one of the fastest-growing air transport regions, with air traffic predicted to double within the next ten years. We are also seeing a huge increase in drones and other non-traditional airspace users. What does this mean for air traffic management? What does it mean for the next generation of aviation professionals? The CANSO Africa Conference 2019 united over 190 senior air traffic management delegates from the region and beyond.

The anticipated growth combined with the rapid development of innovative technologies and the introduction of non-traditional airspace users at lower airspace levels, requires new approaches in regulations, safety and operations.

This begins with strong partnerships focused on managing shared issues collectively. Through collaboration, the region will need to advance its infrastructures and capabilities to meet the high demand, develop tactics to accommodate new airspace users while ensuring safety, and make certain that enough qualified professionals will be available for the future way air traffic management will be conducted.

The CANSO Africa Conference 2019 has addressed these challenges and provided answers to key questions such as:

How could a seamless African sky, which involves contiguous airspace that is technically interoperable, procedurally harmonised and universally safe, be achieved?
How can the region advance current neighbour-to-neighbour collaboration initiatives, and shape regional partnerships?
How can enablers such as performance-based navigation (PBN) benefit safety, flight efficiency and airspace capacity?
How can issues such as avoiding drone/aircraft collisions, the use of unauthorised communication spectrum and functional interoperability between aircraft and non-traditional airspace users be managed?
What will be the impact on human factors? What is the impact on training and how can the next generation of aviation professionals prepare for a fast-changing industry?

This was illustrated with examples of initiatives that encourage regional collaboration towards achieving one airspace, including the Mombasa ATFM Roadmap, designed to implement ATFM, CDM and A-CDM across Africa.