Air traffic flow and capacity management is a vital part of air traffic management in exploiting the full capacity of the air transport system without running the risk of infringing upon safety caused by overload situations. In future the management of ATC capacity will become equally Important as managing the traffic flows.

The responsibility for the management of air traffic flow and capacity management within South African sovereign and delegated airspace resides with the Central Airspace Management Unit (CAMU) which is established at the Johannesburg ATC Centre. The unit's responsibility includes, apart from managing the functions of the slot allocation program, the management of the flexible use of airspace (FUA), facilitating military exercises and operations, special and unusual events and any other activity which might require the use of airspace for a particular time period. The unit is also responsible for the re-routing of traffic, affected by adverse weather and temporary restricted or special use airspace in consultation with the aviation community in a collaborative decision making (CDM) process. In addition they will balance demand against capacity using the ATFM system after CDM with the appropriate aviation community members.

• Reduce ground and en-route delays;
• Maximise capacity and optimise the flow of air traffic;
• Provide an informed choice between departure delay, re-routing and/or flight level selection;
• Alleviate unplanned in-flight rerouting;
• Assist ATS Units in planning for and managing future workload in the light of forecast increased traffic flows within South Africa;
• Assessing the impact of FUAs and TSAs on the air traffic control system;
• Provide improved solutions around predicted severe weather;
• Balance the demand against capacity of ATC sectors, air routes and aerodromes;
• Determine the necessity for an airspace/ground delay program and other traffic management initiatives (TMIs) and to enact them, and;
• Enabling aircraft operators to operate as close to their preferred trajectories.