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Airspace modernisation ‘critical’ to avoid increasing delays, Nats warns

The UK’s national air traffic service (Nats) is taking action to cut airspace delays in the face of record peak-time demand.

The company will be seeking “more operational and financial flexibility” to respond to changing industry conditions and to provide enhanced operational resilience.

Nats chairman Paul Golby said: “Following changes in the business environment and industry developments in technology, we revised our investment plan to accelerate the deployment of technology necessary for the UK’s contribution to a Single European Sky.

“This will provide more capacity to meet ever growing demand, particularly when combined with the essential and overdue modernisation of airspace that we expect to form part of the UK government’s aviation strategy.”

Nats chief executive, Martin Rolfe, said: “The longer term solution to minimising delay is the combination of new technology and modern UK airspace structures, and we are in action on both of these.

“This year we deployed a new system to control upper airspace from our Prestwick Centre.

“Progress on airspace modernisation is critically important to avoid increased delays and constraining aviation growth in the UK. This needs to be supported by clear government policy, which is currently going through consultation.

“We have also developed our digital remote control tower capability, which now enables us to offer innovative air traffic solutions to airport customers.”

The comments came as Nats reported that the number of flights handled rose to 2.45 million in the year to March 31 against 2.28 million in the previous 12 months.

Profits before tax soared to £125.5 million from £44.4 million a year earlier, mainly due to a reduced goodwill impairment charge.

The 7.6% more flights handled than the previous year was the most rapid growth in a decade and much higher than the Civil Aviation Authority’s forecast for the current regulatory period, according to Rolfe.

“The basic structure of the UK’s airspace was designed 50 years ago when traffic volumes were far lower than today’s and it was evident last summer that airspace in the south-east is now operating to its maximum capacity during the busiest times,” he said.

“Our primary objective is to ensure that all flights are handled safely. For this reason, on certain days, we regulated traffic flows in some locations which resulted in more air traffic delay than recent years.

“Our service continues to be extremely good in comparison to Europe, with delay amounting to one third of the European average.”

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