Government urged to prioritise modernisation of UK airspace infrastructure

More needs to be done to modernise the UK’s airspace infrastructure to cut down on flight disruption.
 
The call came from trade body the British Air Transport Association in the wake of aviation data analysed by BBC News setting out the routes and airports where passengers faced the worst punctuality last year.
 
It found Gatwick to have suffered from the most delays, at an average of 18 minutes per flight, while those from Heathrow were delayed by 13 minutes. 
 
Bata chief executive, Tim Alderslade, said: “UK airlines have to provide good customer service to attract passengers in the highly competitive market in which they operate.
 
“Delays occur for a variety of reasons – for example, this year European aviation has experienced huge turmoil with air traffic control strikes in France causing hundreds of cancellations and time-consuming detours.
 
“Far too many journeys are also being disrupted by a lack of resilience in our airspace – the UK’s critical but invisible infrastructure – and more needs to be done by the government to prioritise and support the modernisation of our airspace so that we can safely and effectively handle the 350 million passengers and 3.1 million aircraft that we expect to see in our skies by 2030.”