nats

Air traffic services at London Gatwick Airport (LGW/EGKK) transferred back to National Air Traffic Services (NATS) over the weekend as the contract with the current provider, Air Navigation Solutions Limited (ANSL) came to an end after six years. Existing controllers working for ANSL at Gatwick transferred over to NATS ensuring [read more]

London City Airport (LCY/EGLC) has become the first major airport to have its air traffic control systems fully remote controlled via a digital tower. This summer will see all flights guided on take-off and landing by controllers located at the Swanwick ATC centre in Hampshire, some 70 miles from the [read more]

The UK’s air traffic services provider NATS has issued an urgent message (SANTAM) to all UK airspace users warning them of an special flight happening tonight. The warning comes into effect from 2130hrs UK time and and warns that the flight, callsign SANTA01 will be operating to levels as low [read more]

So what exactly is a “Digital Air Traffic Control Tower”? Basically it is a manned Air Traffic Controller facility that may or may not be on the airport,. It will utilise cameras, radar, radio/telephonephone communication equipment and aircraft data to enable control of airport movements. It will in essence perform [read more]

As much as airlines have been hit by the Corona pandemic, the same can be said of Air Traffic Control (ATC). Income is mostly obtained from aircraft movements, it therefore follows when such movements are down so is the cash flow to ATC! This has been compounded in Europe by [read more]

In a UK first, Unmanned Drones have been flown safely alongside manned aircraft in a demonstration at Manchester Airport. Overseen by UK NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services, Operation Zenith was designed to showcase the ability of unmanned aerial vehicles to work safely within an airport environment [read more]

Irish budget airline Ryanair (FR/RYR) claims that UK Air Traffic Provider NATS is actively discriminating against the airline, a claim which NATS has denied. The airline claims figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) proves that NATS is giving special treatment to Heathrow and Gatwick and imposing delays on [read more]

You may have recently seen a Twitter statement regarding delays from Irish budget airline Ryanair which blamed ATC shortages for delays to its flights on the 9th and 10th July Whilst not unusual in itself, it got more attention when NATS (National Air Traffic Services), the UK’s air navigation provider responded [read more]