Excerpts: New ASECNA Director General, Mr. Amodou Guitteye, plans to enhance visibility and cohesion for ASECNA in relation to its member States and other ANSPs in Africa. Mr. Guitteye, who is the immediate-past Regional Director for ICAO for Western and Central Africa, calls for political non-interference, and commitment from all partners in the all-important quest to achieve seamless airspace in Africa. He spoke with Aviation & Allied Business in Cotonou, Republic of Benin, recently on the key focus of his leadership at ASECNA.

Q: As the new DG of ASECNA, what are your primary areas of focus?

A: My primary focus will be to achieve greater visibility of ASECNA with the member States, because today the complaints from the States are that they don't see exactly what ASECNA is doing for them. Though there are no accidents, the States are not aware of exactly what ASECNA is doing. They know that we are a service provider, but on the day-to-day activities they don't see what ASECNA is doing. So, we have to focus inside by making people work more together, as that is not the case today. It is a big challenge for human resources to work as a team in various locations.

Another area of focus is the implementation of projects. We need to modernise facilities and the way we work. A lot has been done in this area, but we still need to make some improvements so that controllers, electricians, engineers and meteorology staff, among others, can work with new standards and drive benefits from new technology. That's our focus particularly, people working together. We have a lot of expertise in this agency; but if you don't pull them in the same direction they would not produce the desired results.

Q: How do you think the Single African Sky can be achieved?

A: Single Sky does not mean a single (service provision) centre. The main purpose is to have common regulation, common way to work, and interoperability. And if that works properly, we have a single airspace. Even if you have one centre you need to split it because one centre cannot handle everything at the same time. You have communication limitations, you have human resources issues; and in a bigger airspace, you need to be supported by other centres to provide the services to airlines. At our first meeting of air navigation service providers in Dakar, we had talked about the Single African Sky. But what I regret today is that after the meeting, we don't meet to talk about what could be done in the framework of implementing this common regulation and common procedures to avoid duplication of efforts and non-compliance, because these are threats to safety and security. So, we as air navigation service providers need to be more proactive. And I want to make an appeal to my colleagues in neighbouring FIRs to work together so that we can achieve this goal that our States are expecting from us.

Q: How could AFI region key into ICAO's vision of future ATM and the on-going EU's SESAR programme or the US' Next-Gen programme?

A: The bases of all these initiatives are the ICAO provisions and guidance materials. So, in Africa if we comply with these regulations provided by ICAO we will get the same result as these initiatives made by US and Europe. As unity is power, we need to be working closely together. And, in my opinion, if we have common regulation, and adhere to ICAO SARPs and guidance materials we will achieve the same goal of safety over our airspace. The accidents we witness in Africa are related to loss of control or CFIT accidents and non-compliance with airlines' regulations and procedures. Our airspace is safe, but we need to make it even safer.

Q: Where would you want to take ASECNA during your leadership as the DG?

A: My predecessor has done a lot, and my job will be a bit easier. But the challenge is to make people work together. It is easy to say, but very tough to implement. And if we succeed to put the right personnel in the right position, and have better control of their activities, ASECNA will move higher. We need new technologies. Though we have already started to address these issues, we need to be more proactive to renew facilities and ground equipment in full compliance with users' needs. I want this entity to be client-oriented, performance-based and committed to maintaining high quality standards in the information we provide and the service we provide.

Q: Now, what is your word to the stakeholders in the industry as you come on board as DG ASECNA?

A: To the States, I need their assistance on the political side to support initiatives provided by ASECNA because we are acting on their behalf. We are not the owners of the airspaces; these airspaces are delegated to ASECNA to provide the services on behalf of the States. So, we need to have less political interference in the choices we have to make, for instance, when it comes to hiring personnel or implementing projects in the States. We have to provide only the services required by the industry.

For the personnel, they should be committed to achieve one objective which is a safe airspace in Africa. To the airlines, they should be more collaborative, and know exactly what they need. They have to be exigent and proactively discuss with us issues and deficiencies they encounter when flying from one airspace to another, so that we can improve the services we provide on a day-to-day basis. For other air navigation service providers, we need to work together to have common procedures. If we succeed in having these procedures, it will benefit the airlines as they can fly from one airspace to another without even noticing the change of jurisdiction of responsibility. If we have a seamless airspace, we have a single airspace or a single sky.