A good proportion of us will take to the skies over the next few months to reach our holiday destinations and will expect the flight to and from your paradise to be without drama.

In the world of air traffic control, we have that same desire and work particularly hard to realise that expectation, even with growing air traffic levels and increased demand.

GPS is widely used in the transport industry, most obviously by the sat-navs in our cars, but largely due to current levels of signal accuracy and integrity being too low, we’re yet to maximise its use in the aviation industry. This is starting to change, however, with the ongoing development of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS).

Every year the International Air Transport Association (IATA) brings its members together for an Operations Conference. This year the conference was in Los Angeles and focused on the challenge and opportunity from introducing new technology to enhance safety, efficiency and capacity.

The average passenger on board any one of the 5000 plus flights through UK airspace every day is likely to be aware of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) sat in the control tower at their airport, ensuring a safe and efficient arrival or departure.

However, many people simply aren’t aware of the controllers who make sure that aircraft get to their destination through the airspace in-between airports – either just in the UK or connecting a flight between different countries airspace – that’s the job of the area controller.

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.

The new European Commission has indicated that they plan to review the effectiveness of existing legislation before introducing new legislation and I think that’s a good move. They could start by looking at the Single European Sky (SES) initiative.

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.

Ongoing global events and most recently, activity at the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland, have brought the word ‘NOTAM’, or ‘Notice to Airmen’ into the public domain as it is discussed on news broadcasts and online. But what is a NOTAM, who is in charge of them and how do they affect where aircraft fly?

Conditional routes typically go through areas of airspace which are used by the military for their operations. When the military are not using these areas of airspace, they are available (together with the CDRs that go through them) for non-military aircraft. By their nature, CDRs are not available all of the time.