In July, NATS handled 252,173 flights in UK airspace, an increase of 0.9% on July 2018.
There was growth in many areas of the operation, especially non-transatlantic international overflying traffic and transatlantic overflights, increasing by 6.5% and 5% respectively. Traffic grew at seven of the 13 airports where NATS provides the air traffic control service, including three of the ’big five’ London Airports – Heathrow, Luton and London City.
NATS handled almost 24% of Europe’s traffic in July, maintaining high levels of punctuality. Across all 252,173 flights handled in July, 98% had no NATS-attributable delay. Year to date, the average air traffic control delay per flight is just seven seconds.
Juliet Kennedy, NATS operations director, said: “Last month we recorded our busiest-ever day, with 8,863 flights handled by controllers on Friday 5 July. However, that’s not to say that this record won’t be broken again over the summer holiday season. Our air traffic controllers, in our centres and at the airports, are now regularly managing a total of more than 8,000 flights a day, and working extremely hard to ensure that each flight is handled safely and efficiently.”
