Air Traffic Controllers Raise Deteriorating Working Conditions Concerns

Chinedu Eze

Air Traffic Controllers under aegis of the Nigerian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (NATCA) have raised serious concerns about the deteriorating welfare, working conditions, manpower levels, and career progression among its members. 

The Association said the situation has reached a point where the safety of personnel, the stability of operations, and the protection of the nation’s airspace can no longer be taken for granted.

NATCA explained that its concerns are not driven by convenience or emotion, but by the reality of a safety-critical profession being stretched beyond acceptable limits.

The Association said controllers are currently operating under sustained operational deficiencies, inadequate working tools, unresolved welfare issues, and severe psychological strain, all of which create avoidable risks in a sector where precision and alertness are essential every second of the day.

In a statement signed by NATCA President, Edino Ilemona Amos and General Secretary, Umar Fahad, the controllers said that a major concern is the state of obsolete CNS (Communication, Navigation and Surveillance) infrastructure. According to the Association, critical communication, navigation, and surveillance facilities remain outdated and fail to meet acceptable reliability standards, forcing controllers to work around system weaknesses that should not exist in a modern aviation environment. 
NATCA therefore warned that no airspace can be truly safe when the people responsible for managing it are compelled to operate beyond the safe limits of their available systems.

“Equally troubling is the lack of structured training, retraining, and manpower development for Air Traffic Controllers. Aviation is a highly dynamic industry that requires continuous professional development to keep pace with evolving technologies, procedures, and global best practices. However, insufficient investment in recurrent training programmes and the absence of long-term manpower development planning have slowed professional growth and weakened operational resilience. Without sustained capacity-building initiatives, the system risks producing fewer adequately prepared controllers to meet the increasing demands of Nigeria’s expanding airspace,” the controllers said.