Each year the Association of European Airlines (AEA) brings together the leaders of its member airlines to discuss major issues facing the aviation industry. Last week, given NATS’ role as a strategic partner of AEA, Andy Shand, General Manager of Customer Affairs and I attended their 2014 Leadership Summit.

We spoke to Yaquob Al Mahruqi, an aviation systems engineer, about his time in the UK and what difference his new ‘Air Traffic Safety Electronic Personnel’ qualification will mean for him.

Martin Clifford, easyJet Base Captain at Bristol, as guest blogger, shares his thoughts about Continuous Descent Operations (CDO), which involves teamwork between the Tower, the Airport and easyJet.

UK airports already excel at single runway operations – but is it possible to get even better? NATS, in conjunction with SESAR, has been running a simulation to find out whether linked planning tools can help.

One of the most important ways in which NATS seeks to help reduce the environmental impact of aviation is through the Single European Sky ATM Research programme (SESAR). SESAR brings together stakeholders from across the European aviation industry to help develop and deploy new technologies and procedures that can improve the performance of European air traffic management (ATM).

One of the SESAR projects we have led, called TOPFLIGHT, has now been long-listed for a World Responsible Tourism Award in the Best Aviation Programme for Carbon Reduction category.

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.

The growth of wind energy in the UK has posed a challenge for the aviation industry, but excellent progress has been made over the past year in finding solutions for both the en-route and airport environments.

What is SPACE? Put simply, it’s our innovation capability, designed to solve the difficult problems of today and enable us to see further into the future, to drive the aviation industry forward and provide solutions for tomorrow’s needs.

Regeneration should not be a one off process, after all The Doctor has done it more than eleven times and Salamanders are capable of regenerating multiple limbs. We recognise this within NATS and our strategies look as far into the future as possible so that we implement a capability for this future today.

Following the disappearance of MH370, what does the future hold for aircraft tracking and surveillance?