South Africa’s air traffic control and management agency, Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS), has entered into a data services agreement with specialist US company Aireon LLC, the two organisations announced in a press release on Tuesday. As a result, ATNS will, in the near future, be able to monitor all air traffic in the Johannesburg and Cape Town Flight Information Regions (FIRs). Together, these two FIRs account for some 10% of global airspace.

This surveillance will be done using Aireon’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system, which is a satellite-based service that is set to become operational in 2018. It will allow the tracking of aircraft over ocean, desert, mountainous and other sparsely populated and remote areas, where there is currently little, if any, air traffic surveillance.

“Aireon is providing the global air transport industry with a vital piece of technology that will greatly enhance air traffic management,” stated ATNS CEO Thabani Mthiyane. “Much of Africa is currently without any air traffic surveillance. Aireon’s service will give us visibility into many regions, allowing us to facilitate seamless transitions between air traffic control providers. This will be achieved without any additional ground infrastructure and utilising currently-mandated on-board avionics.”

This deal makes ATNS one of Aireon’s launch customers, along with its counterpart agencies in Canada, Denmark, Italy, Ireland and the UK. “ATNS demonstrates exceptional regional and global leadership in air traffic control,” affirmed Aireon CEO Don Thoma. “Their foresight to invest in a long-term solution to solve the issues of global air traffic surveillance will be welcomed across the African continent.”

“Once Aireon’s service is operational in 2018, our increased area of surveillance will allow us to work with our African neighbours to improve safety and air traffic efficiency across this region of the world,” explained Mthiyane. “We welcome ATNS as a launch customer and look forward to collaborating on the deployment of space-based ADS-B in the African region,” said Thoma.