The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, has restated its commitment towards accelerating the digitisation of Aeronautical Information Service in view of the centrality of data automation to the overall safety of civil aviation.

The Managing Director of the Agency, Fola Akinkuotu, made this known on the occasion of the World AIS Day which held at the agency’s headquarters in Lagos on Tuesday.

Mr. Akinkuotu maintained that in view of critical deliverables of the Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) project and “given that it represents a global migration to a dynamic data oriented aeronautical information management system that facilitates the timely exchange of aeronautical information in an accurate and standardized format from anywhere to everywhere globally on real-time basis, the automation project is a must-do for NAMA.”

The deliverables, the NAMA boss said, include the enhancement of e-NOTAM, e-Flight Planning, e-AIP, e-TOD, e-Charts, e-Flight briefing among others.

He explained that for the dream of AIS Automation to be realized, it behoves staff of the department to put in their best to see that their service both at the individual and group level remain invaluable.

Mr. Akinkuotu, however, maintained that the staff could do this through extensive research and paper presentation at seminars, targeted at enriching the system and taking it to the next level.

He also promised to open his doors to their professional and technical advice which he said would give him the needed guidance in taking key decisions.

The NAMA helmsman lauded staff of the AIS department for their diligence, hard work and dedication to duty.

“AIS remains one of the most critical departments in the agency even though they are hardly given the prominence they deserve, because their job most often, is behind-the-scene,” he said, stressing that the absence of AIS in the system will bring about chaos in the entire civil aviation.

In his welcome address, the General Manager, AIS, Kabir Gusau, appealed to NAMA management to consider the periodic training and retraining of AIS personnel which according to him, “would bring staff up to speed with modern trends in a dynamic aviation industry and also prepare them to effectively embrace automation when fully deployed.”

Mr. Gusau also harped on the need for the agency, through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), to ensure that qualified AIS personnel were licensed as this would bolster them towards hard work, commitment to duty and enhanced productivity.

Observed in 191 contracting states globally, the World AIS Day is a day providers of the service, regulatory authorities, users of the service, other aviation stakeholders, as well as AIS systems manufacturers, critically assess the performance of the service and recommend appropriate measures for its enhancement.

In Nigeria, the 2017 World AIS Day with the theme: Efficient Data Management System that Supports Digital Aeronautical Information Services, was celebrated on May 15, 2017 simultaneously in all parts of the country.