NATS, 2% flight traffic increase in UK airspace over summer 2015

Traffic through UK airspace, handled by UK air traffic services provider NATS, continued to grow over the summer holiday months compared to last year.

NATS handled 234,501 flights in July, an increase of 2.2% compared to July 2014 and 229,271 flights in August, up 1.8% from August last year. Transatlantic flights increased over the two months, compared to last year.

In August domestic flights within UK airspace also rose for the tenth consecutive month, with the addition of new routes between London City and Stansted airports to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, as well as new routes from Belfast City Airport.

There was an increase in NATS-attributable delay per-flight in both months for a number of reasons, including an increase in traffic, which resulted in some restrictions to flow rates.

The average delay per flight rose from 3.29 seconds in July 2014 to 3.95 seconds in July this year. August also saw an increase in the average delay per flight from 2.95 seconds in 2014 to 5.51 seconds this year.

However, in both months, 99.6% of all flight experienced no delay at all.

Alastair Muir, Operations Director at NATS Prestwick Centre, said: “July and August are consistently busy months for air travel. We’re seeing growth fed by new routes into Scottish airports while a more northerly jet stream has seen a busy couple of months for our Oceanic operation with a greater number of transatlantic flights through UK airspace.”