South Sudan poised to control total airspace in June

The Director-General of Air Navigation Service, Stephen Rombe, has said Juba is set to take full control of its airspace in June from Khartoum.

Since independence, South Sudan has been controlling its airspace at an altitude of about 25,000 feet while Sudan controls up to 60,000 feet. That means Sudan pockets the revenue from the over-flights in the upper airspace.

However, yesterday, Rombe told The City Review that the country had greatly improved its aviation industry with the help of Navigation Pass (NavPass), which has procured several pieces of equipment for Juba International Airport to be self-sufficient.

He said there are plans to procure more equipment for Wau and Malakal so that the country can have full control of its airspace.

“Malakal Airport has its control tower, so all we need is equipment and a VOR. For Wau Airport, we need to build a tower in Wau. It has a mobile tower provided by the UN, ” he said.

“So we want Wau Airport to have a fixed control tower with equipment that Navpass is going to help us procure. After installing all this equipment, we are going to take our airspace because currently, our controllers are procedural. Our radar is still being constructed by a Chinese company, and it will take a long time,” Rombe stated.

He said they had started the registration of 39 controllers so that they can be trained to transition from procedural airspace control to radar.

“When we are done with all the equipment in Wau and Malakal, then we can control the airspace procedurally. We will get it after six months from Khartoum, and then later, when the Chinese finish constructing the radar, we will train the controllers from procedural to radar. All of this is happening this year,” he confided.

“We have written the names of those who will be trained for the radar. We don’t train freshers from high school; we train people who are already working to orient them from procedural to radar. We have 39 controllers. It is a minimum number, but it is enough for us to take over control of upper airspace within 6 months.”

Bans in place

The director-general added that they had banned most of the aircraft that were not well maintained. He stressed that maintenance was key, adding that most of the engineers that maintained aircraft were not competent, apart from a few who were doing well.

Rombe boasted that the efforts to ensure that aircraft are maintained and the banning of Antonov planes have saved the country from plane crashes after they realised that it was only one type of aircraft that kept on crashing.

The representative of NavPass, who did not want his name mentioned, said that NavPass had procured a lot of equipment for the airport that is currently in use. He stressed that they were committed to procuring more equipment so that South Sudan could benefit from its upper airspace.

Navigation fees

In November 2021, Rombe said that the country had been losing a round sum of $3 million to Sudan for flights over its airspace.

He stated that the country had complete control of the lower airspace, but that the upper airspace, which was controlled by Khartoum, posed a challenge that needed to be addressed to generate enough revenue.

“Imagine $3 million monthly, and [especially] during this time of COVID-19, that is a very huge amount of money that could have been used to install the country’s airport equipment, but now Khartoum is the one chewing it,” Rombe stated.

He stressed that South Sudan’s airspace was wider than Sudan’s and thus much preferred by most of the pilots.

 “I think it is some of the reasons why Sudan (Khartoum) doesn’t want to relinquish control of the airspace to South Sudan,” he stressed.

He promised that SSCAA and NavPass were working hard to ensure that these over-flight fees do not go to Khartoum anymore by ensuring South Sudan takes control of the upper airspace.

 “We are progressing well, although slowly, in phase one. We are dealing with Juba, and the second phase will be dealing with Malakal and Wau, which will cost $1 million, and NavPass will help us to equip these two airports because we have already started charging the airline operators.”

The NavPass communication officer said the control over the airspace was solely the mandate of the Ministry of Transport and Roads through SSCAA and NavPass and “not contingent on equipment or training from Khartoum or China.

 “The SSCAA and technical partner NavPass are now commencing a six-month project to install the infrastructure to manage and control the upper airspace too. In six months, time, South Sudan will wholly manage and control its entire sovereign airspace, both lower and upper, ” he said in a statement to City Review, where he rubbished claims that Juba had no say in the routes.

In April 2021, South Sudan and NavPass penned a deal to claim ownership of South Sudan’s sovereign airspace and collect overflight fees so that non-oil revenue collection could be increased.