Much of Britain is bracing itself for snow and ice this week as the ‘Beast from the East’ arrives from Siberia to set up residence over the UK for the next few days.

We are always looking for new ways to challenge and inspire our thinking; part of that involves making sure that our solutions are not limited to a narrow Air Traffic Management (ATM) perspective and are instead considering how knowledge from other disciplines could be applied to ATM.

Continually updating and beautifully cinematic visualisations of the previous 24 hours of air traffic around the world.

We recently saw Farnborough Airshow take place; a biannual event at which NATS manages the air traffic. We were heavily involved in all stages of the airshow, from the pre-planning in the months leading up to the event to the authorisation of the flying displays.

Aviation produces greenhouse gases, that’s a fact we can’t ignore and yet at the same time the world has become addicted to flying. Later today I will be speaking at the UN Climate Change Summit in Paris to demonstrate some of what we’re doing to deliver CO2 emission reductions.

The aviation community has long argued that having the highest flight tax in the world makes the UK less competitive than our European counterparts. We are likely to see changes in demand as a result of further APD reform.

NATS was recently awarded a contract to work with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) on air traffic management, specifically looking at airport expansion plans, high intensity operations and third runway activity.

So we thought it a good and timely opportunity to share a data visualisation we had made for the Asia Pacific region, offering some insight into just how busy the skies of the region are on any given day.

No two days are the same for the ATCOs and other staff at Heathrow tower. The main challenge is to make sure that all these flights arrive and depart safely and on time. It’s a demanding job, so much so that it can take up to three years to ‘go solo’ as a Heathrow controller.

On the 2nd April 2015, Glasgow Airport will be allocated a listening squawk of 2620. A listening squawk is a code that can be entered into a GA aircraft’s transponder when flying near controlled airspace around an airfield. This makes the aircraft show up on the Glasgow air traffic control team’s radar.

The average passenger on board any one of the 5000 plus flights through UK airspace every day is likely to be aware of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) sat in the control tower at their airport, ensuring a safe and efficient arrival or departure.

However, many people simply aren’t aware of the controllers who make sure that aircraft get to their destination through the airspace in-between airports – either just in the UK or connecting a flight between different countries airspace – that’s the job of the area controller.