NATS performance figures show continued traffic growth
Image courtesy NATS
UK airspace remains some of the most complex and busiest in the world. In the year so far, NATS has safely managed more than 1.8m flights in UK airspace, compared with 1.6m in the same period last year, an increase of over 12%.
This summer’s busiest day was 7th July with 8,010 flights, compared to the record-breaking 8,592 in July 2019.
- While overall volumes are below 2019 traffic across the UK, many airspace sectors are experiencing demand in excess of pre-pandemic traffic levels
- In July, NATS twice set new records for a 24-hour period over the North Atlantic, at over 1,800 aircraft movements; on 7th July NATS handled over 8,000 movements in the UK FIR for the first time since before the pandemic. Many of the airports where NATS provides service handled days close to, or exceeding, those of 2019
- Through August and September, NATS handled an average of almost 7,500 movements daily
- In September, traffic was 8% higher than in 2022
- Significant disruption was caused to network operations by a flight planning sub-system fault on 28th August. An independent review by the CAA is underway
- Disruption to the Europe-wide system as well as in the UK was caused by weather events, including named storms Agnes, Antoni, Betty and Noa and the Mediterranean wildfires
Over the nine months, NATS handled more than 23% of European en-route traffic with the proportion of European delay attributed to NATS (NERL), as reported by Eurocontrol, just 1.7%.
Juliet Kennedy, Operations Director, said: “This has been a busy summer and we are pleased with our overall performance and our responsiveness to the industry dynamics. Whilst we have had our own operational challenges in the past month, wider volatility has also been a significant factor, with air traffic having to cope with many external factors from weather and wildfires to the ongoing war in Ukraine and industrial action in Europe.
“As Eurocontrol said at the start of the season, the whole industry is seeing challenging conditions this summer with more constrained airspace resulting in unprecedented ATC delays, as well as further potential ATC strike action in Europe.
“Our job, above everything else, is to keep aircraft safe in our skies and we have done that. Despite the variety of challenges they have had to deal with, our teams have responded calmly and professionally, each and every day throughout the year, as they always do.”
