The Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) has announced its plan to implement a 35-billion-shilling ($14 million) project to improve voice communication between pilots and air traffic controllers.
The voice communication upgrades are intended to increase the number of flights in the country, as well as boost radar surveillance, TCAA Director General Hamza Johari said on Thursday.
The new audio technology is based on feedback received from pilots and airline companies, who said that the system they were using was obsolete.
“They said that they were experiencing interference in quality while using the system. This forced us to start implementation of this project after completing execution of the major radar project,” Johari said during a press conference in Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
Higher passenger numbers
He added that the number of radars had been increased from one to four to boost surveillance.
Navigation systems have been installed at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, Kilimanjaro International Airport and the Abeid Amani Karume International Airport.
Tanzania has approximately 154 air traffic controllers compared to 70 nearly 20 years ago, when the TCAA began its operations.
“The number of passengers has also increased to 5.72 million from 1.52 million two decades ago,” Johari said.
The number of aircraft operating in the Tanzanian airspace has also risen to 206 from 101.
There are more pilots today in Tanzania. The East African nation has 603 registered pilots compared to 234 nearly 20 years ago.
