Ian Hall, Director, Development and Investment, enjoys recounting how, in 1993 he was able to tell our customers, the airlines, that average delays had been halved from 22 minutes per flight to 11 minutes per flight – and they were delighted.

Today, the average delay per flight is 19 seconds. 

NATS is extremely proud of its performance in reducing delays whilst safely handling ever increasing volumes of traffic in some of the most complex airspace in the world.  Annual UK air traffic volumes doubled from 1m in 1985 to 2m in 2000, and today stand at just under 2.4m.

Operational information:

CENTRES:

London Area Control, Swanwick, controls the En route airspace over England and Wales, above 24,500 feet. It handles up to 7,000 flights a day and managed 1,803,744 flights in 2009.

London Terminal Control, Swanwick, controls the airspace over southern England below 24,500 feet. It handles up to 4,500 flights a day and managed 1,259,241 flights in 2009.

Manchester Area Control, based at Prestwick Centre in Ayrshire since January 23, 2009, controls the airspace over the Midlands and north-west England below 28,500 feet. It handles up to 2,000 flights a day and managed 489,429 flights in 2009.

Scottish Area Control, also at Prestwick, controls the airspace over Scotland and its coasts, up to 50,000 feet. It handles up to 2,200 flights a day and managed 558,169 flights in 2009.

Oceanic Area Control Centre, Prestwick controls the airspace over the eastern half of the North Atlantic (to 55 Degrees West), up to 50,000 feet.  It handles up to 1,400 flights a day and managed 389,739 flights in 2009.

Overall, NATS handles up to 8,200 flights a day in UK controlled airspace. NATS managed 2,200,326  flights in 2009.

AIRPORTS:

Heathrow Airport is the world’s most intensively used international airport. It handled 481,483 flights in 2007, 0.9 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 1,400 flights a day.

Gatwick Airport is the world’s busiest single-runway airport. It handled 266,518 flights in 2007, 1.2 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 880 flights a day.

Stansted Airport handled 208,315 flights in 2007, 1.2 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 740 flights a day.

Luton Airport handled 119,968 flights in 2007, 3.6 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 725 flights a day.

London City Airport handled 91,651 flights in 2007, 15.1 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 390 flights a day.

Manchester Airport handled 222,024 flights in 2007, 3.4 per cent down on 2006. The airport handles up to 900 flights a day.

Birmingham Airport handled 114,791 flights in 2007, 4.0 per cent down on 2006. The airport handles up to 470 flights a day.

Edinburgh Airport handled 128,168 flights in 2007, 1.2 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 650 flights a day.

Glasgow Airport handled 107,578 flights in 2007, 2.2 per cent down on 2006. The airport handles up to 470 flights a day.

Aberdeen Airport is one of the world’s busiest airports for rotary-wing operations, handling traffic for the offshore oil and gas industry. It handled 121,770 flights in 2007, 4.3 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 560 flights a day.

Belfast (International) Airport handled 76,293 flights in 2007, 1.0 per cent down on 2006. The airport handles up to 520 flights a day.

Cardiff Airport handled 43.898 flights in 2007, 3.7 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 485 flights a day.

Southampton Airport handled 54,303 flights in 2007, 0.6 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 230 flights a day.

Bristol (International) Airport handled 76,764 flights in 2007, 8.8 per cent down on 2006. The airport handles up to 270 flights a day.

Farnborough Airport handled 29,424 flights in 2007, 15.7 per cent up on 2006. The airport handles up to 180 flights a day.

Gibraltar Airport handled 5,201 flights in 2007, the first full year of NATS’ ATC operation.

DELAYS:

In 2008/9, 98.2 per cent of flights handled received no NATS-attributable delay. The flight delay attributable to NATS during this financial year averaged 19.3 seconds. In 2002, the average delay attributable to NATS was 2½ minutes.

SAFETY: 

Internationally agreed measure of air traffic safety is the ‘airprox’, being any incident in which the distance between two aircraft was such that their safety was, or might have been, compromised.

The number of airproxes between commercial aircraft in UK airspace has fallen to a fifth compared to figures at the end of the last decade, despite increasing traffic. In 2008/09, there were no risk-bearing airproxes involving commercial flights in UK airspace.