UK Air Traffic Rises in September Amid Strong Transatlantic Growth
UK air traffic in September increased by 2.4 per cent on the same month last year as NATS, the UK’s major provider of air traffic services, safely handled 236,403 flights. This averaged 7,880 flights a day.
The market segment with biggest year-on-year growth was transatlantic overflights, which increased by 10.6 per cent, with particular growth in flights using UK airspace to fly between Italy and the United States, Belgium and the United States, and Canada and the Netherlands. Domestic UK flights, however, dropped by 6.2 per cent.
According to Eurocontrol, NATS handled 23.5 per cent of Europe’s traffic in September and was accountable for just 1.7 per cent of Europe’s delay. 98.2 per cent of flights received no NATS-attributable delay; the average NATS delay per delayed flight was 13 minutes.
Stephen Fox, Director Operations Control, said:
“September is still a busy month for air traffic, with the airline summer schedules running up until the end of October. Our controllers continue to work extremely hard to handle the challenges and impacts of bad weather and constrained, congested airspace, getting aircraft and passengers to their destinations efficiently, but most importantly, safely.”
