Gatwick Control Tower (Image NATS)
News

Air traffic services at Gatwick switch back to 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]

The new digital tower control room at NATS Swanwick control centre for London City Airport is due to enter full operations service in 2019.
Features

Digital Air Traffic Control Towers

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]

NATS Swanwick ATC Centre
News

Tough times for Air Traffic Control

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]

NATS Swanwick ATC Centre
News

Ryanair and NATS blame game continues

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]

L-R-Neil Turner, Alistair Coffin, Maggie Gault, Matt Thompson. (Image: NATS)
Aviation safety news

NATS EFPS System takes-off at Farnborough

The UK’s leading air traffic services provider, NATS has successfully introduced its Electronic Flight Progress Strips (EFPS) system to Farnborough Airport (FAB/EGLF). The NATS “Hub and Spoke” system incorporates Approach and Radar services along with Farnborough’s Lower Airspace Radar Service (LARS). Farnborough saw 27,000 movements last year and with 100,000 flights [read more]