Making ATFM a Reality in Africa by 2030: From the Mombasa Roadmap to Operational Implementation (Part 1)

Africa has long recognized the importance of collaborative Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM). The 2018 Mombasa ATFM Roadmap established a regional vision built around collaboration, information sharing, collaborative decision-making (CDM), demand and capacity management, and coordinated implementation across States and ANSPs. Eight years later, and with new ICAO ATFM provisions on the horizon, the focus is shifting from regional ambition to practical implementation.

This interactive session will revisit the Mombasa Roadmap through the lens of today’s operational environment: What has progressed? What remains outstanding? Are the priorities identified in 2018 still the right ones for Africa today and what needs to happen now to accelerate implementation? Regional leaders and international experts will share perspectives on lessons from ATFM implementation elsewhere and explore the barriers, enablers and areas of regional cooperation that will be critical to Africa’s journey towards 2030.
The discussion will then move from the regional picture to the practical question facing individual States and ANSPs: What level of ATFM capability do we actually need, and how do we determine the pathway to get there?
Drawing on CANSO’s forthcoming ATFM Levels of Implementation: A Reference for ANSPs, participants will be introduced to a practical framework for determining an appropriate level of ATFM implementation based on operational need, not on the assumption that every ANSP requires the same solution or should immediately pursue the highest level of capability.

Using African ANSP examples and audience participation, this interactive session will work through the framework’s practical implementation pathway: assessing the operational environment, applying the ATFM level selection matrix, considering regional obligations and dependencies, evaluating organizational readiness, and identifying an appropriate level and implementation pathway.
Participants will explore the operational triggers that may influence the level of ATFM required, including demand-capacity imbalances, traffic growth, congestion, airspace complexity, weather and staffing constraints, cross-border traffic and other operational disruptions and consider the technical, human, institutional and financial readiness required to support implementation.

The session will also distinguish between how individual ANSPs can progress independently and what requires coordination among neighbouring ANSPs, regional agreements and wider AFI cooperation. The outcomes will help shape a follow-on ICAO & CANSO workshop planned for Q1 2027, focused on advancing practical ATFM implementation across the region.