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ATNS Acting CEO Matome Moholola addresses the media on October 29, 2025.
With just under a month to go ahead of the G20 heads of states summit in South Africa, the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) has given its assurance on air traffic readiness.
ATNS Acting CEO Matome Moholola provided an update on the entity’s progress in stabilising operations and rebuilding core capacity on Wednesday.
The entity came under fire after failing to update its instrument flight procedures leading to disruptions at airports including Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport.
Moholola reported that 240 of the 388 flight procedures have been approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) also in time for the festive season.
He also apologised to commuters and airlines for the disruptions to air travel as the entity navigate operational challenges.
Moholola gave an update on work underway at the entity reporting progress in efforts to ensure a secure air travel safety at some airport with almost a third of the air flight procedures now active.
He says, “Out of a total of 388 procedures that are in the country, broken down as follows: 181 in routes, what we refer to as the RNAV (Area Navigation); the 176 instrument flight procedures and the conventional groups been 31. The total number of its 388. We have in publication and approved 240 of those procedures out of the 388. That’s the progress we’ve been able to make to date. We have a few procedures that are in the process of being published. We have those that have been approved, both the procedure and the charts having been approved and they are currently observing the eric cycle. We have the Kimberley with Bloem(fontein), we have PE (Gqeberha), and we have Kruger. All of these four will be coming into effect by the 27th of November this year.”
G20 AIRPORTS
Airports including the OR Tambo international, Lanseria International and Waterkloof Airforce base have been identified as G20 airports with Moholola saying they will ready for the heads of states summit.
He says, “There’s the G20 coming through. We must also assure the public that there are no challenges envisaged as far as the G20s concerned. There are a few airports that have been earmarked or designated as the G20 airports, all those procedures we can confidently confirm to the public that they do have the procedures available to them.”
Moholola says, “We also have airports that are designated as parking lots. Regrettably, there’s only one, which is Polokwane, that doesn’t, at this present moment, have the procedures for it, but we are busy currently working together with the Aviation Forum to ensure that we get that part sorted out.”
The entity has attributed its challenges to, amongst others, the loss of critical staff to international competitors, but says it has had to come up with strategies to address this.
Moholola says, “We are unable to compete with the oil money in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). We are unable to compete with the dollar monies and employees will then give the city of the skills they possess … we have a pipeline currently of seven trainees at various stages of training process. We are currently, overall, sitting at 82%. We have plans in place to continue recruiting and training and our projections are, by the end of this current financial year across all the ATS stuffing units, overall, we will be sitting at 95%.”
UNQUALIFIED AUDIT
ATNS also managed to obtain an unqualified audit with the revenue also shooting up in the financial year ended march 2025.
He says, “Our revenue has shot up by about 4% to 1.8 billion. Incredibly, our EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation) has gone down by 22,9% from R240.9 million to R185,6 and the profit for the period remains steady at 22.3 compared to 23.3 in the previous financial year. Our total assets have improved from 2.7 to 3.1 billion.”
The entity says it plans to have all air flight procedures approved in July 2026.
It will focus its efforts towards the recruitment of staff especially at OR Tambo with the board still seized with the suspended CEO matter.
The ATNS says they are confident in meeting the set deadlines as it allays fears of air traffic disruptions going into the G20 and festive season.
The Ministerial intervention team is also continuing with its oversight work in helping stabilise the entity going into the 2026 financial year.
