With four and half thousand employees, NATS has a variety of specialists supporting our operation. Air Traffic Controllers, Engineers and Analysts are all key, but you’re probably not aware of some our smaller specialist teams – such as our medical team of four qualified doctors.

Last week the Secretary of State for Transport addressed an industry lunch, sitting in the audience I was proud when I heard him say ‘the teams that manage and operate the airspace system do a phenomenal job’.

For NATS optimisation is about helping airlines, airport operators and other air navigation service providers to reach their full capability and get the best from their existing resources, assets and infrastructure.

Cross-border collaboration and multi-agency working is now a necessity in the world of Air Traffic Management as we work towards delivering a Single European Sky (SES). NATS, working closely with our UK-Ireland Functional Airspace Block (FAB) partners, has just project managed the delivery of a landmark cross-border trial in support of one of the next generation of SES concepts.

When you think of air traffic control, you naturally think of planes, but did you know that NATS is also involved in rocket launches and the safe passing of them – and the aircraft around them – through our skies?

Mark Flanigan is general manager of Strategy & Solutions at NATS. In this video he explains how we encourage innovative thinking, and how we bring ideas to life by investing in our staff, technology and state-of-the-art facilities to support project teams with the tools and time to innovate.

A video has been produced showing an imaginary infringement with the aim of demonstrating best practice for pilots if they find themselves wandering where they shouldn’t.

A lot of questions about radar have been raised recently as people are wondering about tracking aircraft and what information Air Traffic Controllers actually see on a screen when speaking with pilots.

Despite the enormous expansion and investment, the future of aviation in the Gulf emains in the balance.

English is the international language of the air, although a few minutes spent listening to an air traffic controller and you’d be forgiven for not realising it!