We’re now less than a month away from West Airspace Deployment (West) and we are busy finalising preparations for implementation.

Kirsty Richards talks about her role and why you should apply to be a Feed Sector Specialist.

Lauren Dixon tells us all about her role as an Aircraft Control Position Operator and why you should apply to be one too!

Last week, we were celebrating Learning at Work Week 2022, the national event run by the Campaign for Learning.

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. 

The clocks have gone back and with that we’re into the winter flying schedule and what are usually the quieter months of the year once the summer season ends. And while the traffic volumes may have followed that annual trend, I’m really encouraged to see that traffic percentages are creeping up … slowly but surely. 

I recently spoke at an online webinar hosted by Resilient Pilot on the topic of skills fade and the anxiety being felt by air traffic controllers and pilots who have been furloughed for the past year (and more) and therefore working with far fewer flights than usual due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.  

Our latest data visualisation is a really stark illustration of how hard the industry has been hit by the pandemic and with the Government still considering its “traffic lights” system, the much-needed summer on which the industry has been pinning its hopes is starting to look more uncertain and ever further away. We are ready if and when we get the green light for international travel, but we desperately need clarity if the summer is to be saved.

In our response to the impact the pandemic is having on the aviation industry, we have prioritised protecting operational jobs to ensure we have the capacity to manage traffic when it returns. However, the industry is not predicting a return to 2019 traffic levels until 2024 or even 2025, which means painful decisions cannot be avoided. 

Working in the safety critical world of air traffic control, NATS has a strong record in the provision of peer support (Critical Incident Stress Management – CISM) to colleagues across the business. As the number of flights across the UK has dropped dramatically, a lot of our employees have been put on furlough. With more spare time on our hands, we were honoured to be asked to assist the NHS fulfil their own employee support helpline and play our part.