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.

Safety is always a key consideration and Aberdeen has supported the adoption of Wide Area Multilateration technology, which uses signals from transmitters and receivers fitted to oil and gas platforms to track offshore flights.

Hear what John Millar, NATS’ General Manager at Aberdeen Airport, has to say about the service his team provides to both fixed wing aircraft and the numerous helicopters in the latest Tower Tour video.

A while back NATS tweeted an image of the electronic flight strip and a follower asked if we’d explain the information the strip contains.

In simple terms, an electronic flight strip is a way for an air traffic controller to see all the relevant information about a specific aircraft; what it’s doing and where it’s going. There are actually different types of strip and as a tower controller I’m going to walk you through what I use: Electronic Flight Progress System (EFPS).

Hosting major international sporting events presents both challenges and opportunities, with the invisible infrastructure above our heads playing an integral role in the planning process.

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.

Engineers can imagine too! As we begin to deploy more SESAR air traffic management technologies and concepts, we are also imagining how we could further improve our services – now and in the future.

Ensuring air traffic controllers stay sharp and on top of their game is obviously hugely important in terms of the efficient running of an airport or control centre, but especially so for ensuring safety.

This is the third annual World ATM Congress trade show and we’re looking forward to welcoming delegates onto our stand to talk with our team and watch a range of technical demonstrations, as well as participate in more light hearted activities in the form of refreshments and games.

We’ll be featuring ACM on our NATS Stand and I will be giving technical demonstrations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. If you’re attending the Congress and are interested in ACM, please do come along and I’d be very happy to tell you more.

The ferroNATS project encompassed a series of safe and seamless transitions from one ATC provider to another, and also the recruitment and training of new air traffic controllers, creation of new safety cases for each airfield and the implementation of NATS’ renowned Just Culture for safety reporting.

Now that FerroNATS is firmly established as a trusted air traffic services provider in Spain we take a look at the project, its challenges and its benefits in a new interactive feature.