Poor management and failure to keep up with required set ICAO standards in areas such as accident investigations, operations, safety and security are among the reasons the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) have failed to get a new certification status of Entebbe/Kampala airport. In turn, this has delayed the national carrier Uganda Airlines to expand to the United Kingdom according to a report by ChimpReports tabloid citing newly unearthed documents.
The report further reveals that the country’s civil aviation authority has not acquired a new ICAO certification since the last inspection by the UN body in 2014 in which the airport scored 61.6% average in eight areas including: operations, airworthiness, accident investigation, air navigation services, legislation, organisation, licensing and aerodromes. ICAO in its report raised concerns that no runway surface friction tests were carried out, the airport lacked a wind velocity display, there was no radio to monitor inbound aircraft; there was no equipment to access the top decks of aircraft such as B747 while the airports staff lacked the right safety attire such as life jackets and had inadequate fire fighting skills.
Further, it has been revealed that the UCAA certification committee has so far cost the Ugandan taxpayer millions in benchmarking trips to other countries with little to show in terms of standards.
The lack of certification of its main operations hub has meant that Ugandan airlines which acquired two A330-800N in 2020 and 2021 cannot land at London’s Heathrow airport affecting the airline’s bottom line.
And while Uganda’s Entebbe Airport was selected among eight airports to benefit from certification assistance by ICAO including an expert to expedite the process the negative attitude and lack of necessary support from the airport staff led to the experts withdrawal.
In 2018, ICAO selected Entebbe among eight airports for assistance with certification. The organisation provided an aerodrome expert for 12 months to help expedite the process. According to confidential UCAA records seen by ChimpReports, having completed the oversight component, the ICAO expert started helping UCAA build the operational and sustainable capabilities of the airport staff. Senior managers who at many times did not participate in the aerodrome certification preparation slowed down the process as they lacked necessary knowledge on many certification issues during otherwise technical working group meetings.
Entebbe airport is currently ranked lower than its peer airports in the East Africa Community including Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Both Kenya and Rwanda have both achieved the coveted Category One Certification under the US Federal Aviation Administration’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) programme allowing their national carriers to fly directly to the United States.