Building on the research and the experience of live trials with SATAVIA, we hope to get a better understanding of what contrail formation means for our controllers and operation over the North Atlantic and how we could implement avoidance strategies without increasing fuel consumption, and CO2 emissions.

Earlier this month, I was invited to present at the Asia Pacific (APAC) Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation CEO Committee Meeting to talk about our recent deployment of Free Route Airspace and the benefits it could deliver across the region.

FlyZero is looking to realise the UK’s ambition to develop a zero-carbon emission aircraft. Nearly a year on the project has reported its findings, which demonstrate the huge potential of green liquid hydrogen to power even long-haul aircraft.

The Covid pandemic had a huge impact on aviation. Almost overnight the volume of traffic in the UK dropped hugely, by up to 90%. But this also provided an unexpected opportunity to see how we could use the UK’s airspace more efficiently.

Increasingly, its technology that is allowing airports to unlock the next level of capability and performance, something that will be increasingly important for the Greater Bay Area as the Chinese government aims to grow the region into a world-leading transportation hub.

From 1 March, anyone flying at Flight Level 330 and below will be able to do so entirely free from of the OTS structure. This change means anyone operating at those levels will have the flexibility to file a random route plan and choose the trajectory that suits them.

As part of our journey to embracing the diversity of our colleagues, NATS has recently signed up to Business in the Community’s (BITC) Race at Work Charter. This requires a commitment to improve the equality of opportunity in our workplace by delivering against seven key actions which we hope will improve our approach to D&I at NATS.

As climate change continues to make its presence felt, and events like Storm Arwen become more regular and severe, we need to embed climate resilience into our facilities and operations.

We talk often about airspace modernisation and how it’s progressing, but we haven’t talked before about how we prepare our controllers for a new airspace design. 

I’m finding in conversations with airport operations directors around the world, is that they’re looking at ways to enable future growth, but in a way that reflects our current reality.