The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has increased the satellite ground base stations from eight to 14 to accommodate the new airports across the country.

NAMA’s acting managing director Matthiew Pwajok announced this on Sunday, noting that in the past, only eight satellite stations were serving the airports across the countries.

Mr Pwajok explained that the base stations were built due to the upcoming airports in Bayelsa, Anambra, Ekiti, Osun, Abeokuta and elsewhere.

“We have to increase the number of satellite base stations from eight to 14, with some strategically installed in Benin, Enugu, Calabar, Jos, Kaduna, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Kano and Abuja,” said the NAMA boss. “This is to enhance communication between pilots and Air Traffic Controllers in the upper air space.”

Mr Pwajok explained that new ground stations would further improve pilots-controllers’ voice communication within the upper airspace, which had few challenges in the past.

He said the agency had completely overhauled all the landing systems in over 10 airports, replacing them with brand new doppler high-frequency omnidirectional range (VOR) navigational gear.

Mr Pwajok said the agency invested heavily in ground navigation by installing doppler VOR in not less than 10 airports, including Maiduguri, Enugu, Minna, Jos, Sokoto, Kano and Benin, among others.

He added that it installed Category Three Instrument Landing System (ILS) in Kano, Katsina and Port Harcourt, disclosing that the agency installed satellite-based navigation equipment to back up the ground navigation systems.

(NAN)