NATS, Leidos and Heathrow Airport are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Time-Based Separation (TBS) – using time intervals to manage aircraft separation on approach instead of fixed distances – delivered as a world first when their groundbreaking Intelligent Approach arrival spacing tool went live in 2015.

Collaboration has always been a key part of the way we work at NATS and even during these socially distanced times, we have continued to work closely, even if remotely, with our partners. This has been demonstrated most recently by our work with LVNL, the Dutch air traffic navigation services provider, running Intelligent Approach simulations while maintaining social distancing and engaging virtually across national borders.

In April I attended the annual IATA Ops Conference in Ottowa, where we were able to share a vision for transatlantic flights in 2025, jointly developed by us at NATS and the Canadian air traffic service, NAV CANADA. The video we produced is aimed at an aviation audience but hopefully it gives any viewer an idea of the huge amount of work that we’re doing with NAV CANADA to transform transatlantic operations to make it safer, cleaner and far more efficient.

On Thursday 21st September, Andy Shand took part in a discussion with Russell Akehurst from Leidos as part of a live broadcast about NATS Intelligent Approach suite of ATM tools. Here are the answers to some of the questions we received…

Last week I was interviewed alongside Kevin Hightower, Aviation Chief Technologist of Lockheed Martin, as part of a live webcast on the concept of Intelligent Approach, including Time Based Separation (TBS) and Pairwise. These are the answers to some of the questions raised during the webcast.

We have just published the results of our annual customer survey where airlines from across the world get their chance to review the service they’ve receive from NATS over the past 12 months.

In March easyJet invited friends and family into their HQ at London Luton Airport to give them a behind the scenes look into the world of aviation. It’s an important occasion where guests get an insight into what goes on behind closed hangar and cockpit doors.

We’re coming up to the first anniversary of Time Based Separation (TBS) entering operational service for Heathrow arrivals and I’m pleased to say it’s been a huge success.

Every year the International Air Transport Association (IATA) brings its members together for an Operations Conference. This year the conference was in Los Angeles and focused on the challenge and opportunity from introducing new technology to enhance safety, efficiency and capacity.

Conditional routes typically go through areas of airspace which are used by the military for their operations. When the military are not using these areas of airspace, they are available (together with the CDRs that go through them) for non-military aircraft. By their nature, CDRs are not available all of the time.