Above: Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The government of Jamaica is planning to spend $22 million USD over the next two years on aviation safety and security, according to Leroy Lindsay, director general of the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority.

In a government release, Lindsay said the work would focus on upgrading or replacing aging technology “in keeping with international standards.”

The Director General said that Jamaica was already ranked 10 percent above international compliance requirements in this area having improved significantly over its 2007 ranking.

““Regarding air navigation services, we will be replacing all dated technology, so that we will, in the next two or three years, have even better technology and equipment than our friends to the north of us,” he said. “We hope, for example, to have Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) equipment, which will give us satellite surveillance of aircraft by 2017. The USA will have that commissioned in 2020 and the UK will have it commissioned in 2018.”

The plan is also to replace “dated” radar equipment, and the JCAA has already issued requests for proposals to acquire new radars.

By 2017, the aim is to have replaced Controller Pilot Data Link Communications, which is the automatic communication between air traffic control systems and aircraft systems.

Lindsay said that would allow air traffic controllers “less controlling and more monitoring, which will make the skies safer.”