Blue Skies students shine at JET graduations

Working alongside one of our charity partners, the Jon Egging Trust (JET), means I’m rarely short of proud moments. As a business, we host groups of local young people participating in JET’s Blue Skies programme across Hampshire and Dorset. The students join us throughout the year to learn skills such as leadership, collaboration, resilience and communications; as well as learning more about our company and the range of careers available here and in the aviation industry as a whole.

This time of year is always a time of celebration, as we’re fortunate enough to share the JET students’ graduation ceremonies with their families and friends before they head into the school summer holidays. The graduations mark the end of each busy year of the three-year Blue Skies programme and are an important recognition of the young people’s achievements, development and growth from their Blue Skies year.

This year, the graduations seemed even more emotive and reflective – not only for me, NATS colleagues and the other corporate partners, but for the JET team and guests, too. As the students took turns giving their speeches and calling out their highlights, I was reminded of the determination each of them showed time and time again to try something new, challenging themselves in an unfamiliar and perhaps daunting environment.

The students took turns to vocalise the different experiences they’ve each had on the programme – from making robotic hands to controlling the fire hose at an RAF base. At NATS this year, we were fortunate enough to host Blue Skies 3 students at Southampton Airport so they could see behind the scenes of a live airport operation, from the air traffic control tower to the fire service, in addition to the workshops at our corporate and technical centre.

At the same time, our Early Careers team have been supporting JET with fundraising activity, ranging from climbing the three peaks to washing cars and selling cakes. To date the team have raised over £5,500 with more activity and donations still to come. This will help fund the programme further and enable even more young people to achieve great things through the Jon Egging Trust.

Even though we have supported JET for several years and have many employees involved in volunteering and fundraising for the charity, it was still a welcome surprise to be awarded JET’s ‘Corporate Team of the Year 2025’ in May. Speaking about why we were selected, the JET team said: “From donations of funding and giving over 100 hours of volunteer support to our students, NATS has been an incredibly strong advocate for JET for almost 10 years. It’s a partnership that continues to grow across our regions.”

To hear that our business has helped hundreds of young people to develop their confidence and capabilities is really humbling. And we see first-hand how a little guidance and time spent can have such positive impact. As always, I’m looking forward to greeting our return visitors later in the year and welcoming new students to the programme, as well as working with our amazing NATS volunteers to maximise the experience we can give JET and their inspirational young people.

NATS began a partnership with JET in 2018, and we work directly with JET’s young people through the Blue Skies programme across Hampshire and Dorset. Blue Skies is a three-year programme centred around skills such as teamwork, communication and leadership and links the students with inspirational people and environments connected to aviation, science and engineering. The programme inspires the students to re-engage with education and build the confidence and resilience they will need for life in the workplace.