Yesterday I joined colleagues at the World ATM Congress for a discussion about some of the key challenges facing those of us in the world of air traffic management in the years to come.

With the Christmas and New Year celebrations already a distant memory, 2016 is shaping up as another very challenging and exciting year for both NATS and the wider aviation industry.

Unlike most of our physical transport infrastructure – our roads, our railways, or our runways – the airspace infrastructure is invisible but it is most certainly there, underpinning the UK’s aviation industry and the UK economy.

Sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy to galvanise our understandably conservative industry into taking bold steps, but our response must be measured as well as meaningful.

Following the disappearance of MH370, what does the future hold for aircraft tracking and surveillance?

This morning I took part in a panel discussion at the World ATM Congress discussing performance delivery and meeting airline (i.e. our customers’) expectations.

The ATCA conference and exhibition showed that the the US ATC operation is staffed by dedicated people who are aware of the challenges of NextGen but are tired of a governance model.

Air traffic control is all about getting as many aircraft through your airspace as efficiently and safely as possible. If you can successfully do that day in day out, passengers, airports and airlines will all be happy – sounds simple!