UK air traffic manager NATS pursues airspace reform

UK air traffic manager NATS is pressing ahead with plans to reorganise the country’s airspace to reduce congestion and improve capacity. NATS CE Martin Rolfe explained Thursday that the organisation’s key focus was on reforming network-level airspace, in particular the UK’s congested lower level airspace, in order to reduce delays and aircraft holding. This will involve making changes to the organisation of upper-level airspace, which “means we can allow pilots to plan their own routes and constrain them when we absolutely have to, and that’s good from an efficiency perspective and a fuel and CO2 perspective”. He foresees reduced intervention between air traffic controllers and pilots. Changes will arrive first in the form of NATS programmes for high-level free-route airspace, and then its systemised lower-level network changes. “In due course this will deliver the best balance between environmental efficiency and capacity – and by capacity, what I mean is minimising air traffic delays to the passengers,” says Rolfe. NATS is also looking to build on progress it has made in reducing congestion in other areas.<br/>