Most, if not all of us who have flown into London Heathrow will have experienced their aircraft being ‘held’ – circling on the outskirts of the airport – before being given clearance to land. So why does it happen – and is it necessary?

We’ve been delving through the archives and uncovered some great old photographs of air traffic control at Heathrow in the 1940s and 50s. We thought you might like to see them.

Jon Proudlove reckons his “office” has the best view from its windows of anywhere in the UK – and it would be hard to disagree. Why? Because Jon is the General Manager of Air Traffic Control at Heathrow Airport.

NATS air traffic control operations at Heathrow Airport will be in the spotlight in a new live TV event broadcast over four nights next month.

Historical records show that around 70% of aircraft accidents occur in the landing and take-off phase of a flight. This means that areas close to airports have an above average risk of damage due to aircraft accidents. So how do we protect against this risk?

We’ve developed a new monitoring tool to help our operational and environmental managers better understand flight profiles around our airports.

Last summer the eyes of the world were firmly fixed on Great Britain as hosts of the London 2012 Olympics. Guaranteeing the smooth arrival and departure of an additional five million visitors to the UK was of paramount importance under such an intense spotlight.

On January 1st 2012 we delivered another world first by measuring the environmental performance of our airspace in an entirely new way.