This week we said a bittersweet adios to FerroNATS, the pioneering Spanish joint venture we originally set up with Ferrovial Servicios – now Serveo – over a decade ago in 2011.

In 2011 the Spanish government decided that the time had come to open the national air traffic control sector up to competition in search of efficiency gains. New beginnings are always hard.

Now that more than 35 million passengers have passed through the airports whose air traffic is controlled by FerroNATS, and with management of over 500,000 flights under our belt, we barely have the time to look back and remember how it all started. But there was a beginning and getting from there to here required a lot of hard work. This blog looks back at the journey.

FerroNATS took over the running of Ibiza back in November 2013, meaning this was our first summer operating ATC at the airport and I’m delighted to say that, despite an increase in traffic, punctuality improved during our first summer.