https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

SKA to cost South African airlines

22nd May 2018

By: Rebecca Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

Font size: - +

The South African component of the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope programme had become a major "headache" for the South African aviation sector, Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) executive manager Jeoffrey Matshoba pointed out in his presentation to the Commercial Aviation Association of Southern Africa Commercial Aviation Symposium on Tuesday. "We did not realise the impact it would have on aviation," he said.

The Cape Town-Johannesburg air route is the 12th busiest air route in the world, he highlighted. And all the domestic Gauteng-Cape Town air routes overfly the SKA reservation in the Karoo region in the Northern Cape province.

It was a requirement of the SKA that no air routes pass over its sites. Consequently, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) was adamant that the ATNS move these air traffic routes.

"We have to redesign those routes," he stated. They will all have to be shifted eastwards, to pass the SKA reservation.

But moving the air routes would increase the distance the airliners have to fly. This will increase their fuel consumption and so their costs. These increased costs will come to just over R2-million a year, reported Matshoba.

The aviation industry, he averred, had to convince the DST that there was a technical solution to the problem. This would allow the SKA and aviation to co-exist.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

Showroom

Booyco Electronics
Booyco Electronics

Booyco Electronics, South African pioneer of Proximity Detection Systems, offers safety solutions for underground and surface mining, quarrying,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Booyco Electronics
Booyco Electronics

Booyco Electronics, South African pioneer of Proximity Detection Systems, offers safety solutions for underground and surface mining, quarrying,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.078 0.131s - 174pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now