Earlier this week we opened our headquarters for the Middle East, with a permanent office in Dubai. To mark the occasion, a number of our senior executives met with Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman of Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, to discuss some of the most aviation opportunities and challenges facing the Gulf.

Our trials of a new X Band radar to mitigate the effects of wind turbines at airports have understandably excited the airport community. A debate has sparked up between different members of the industry, including a few questions that I want to take this opportunity to answer.

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.

Industrial Placement schemes (IPs) are available across NATS as well as vacancies for Direct Entry Graduates (DEGs) in Engineering. Applying for such positions may seem a little daunting so we asked some of our new IPs to share some tips and first impressions.

The first episode of ITV Cymru Wales broadcast of ‘The Airport’, the new fly on the wall documentary, which takes you behind the scenes at Cardiff Airport, included our team of controllers manning the control tower during a General Aviation (GA) Rally. Rallies are by no means rare, but do require lots of planning by the NATS’ team to accommodate extra traffic.