UK air traffic down 5% last month
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has revealed that it handled almost 5% less air traffic movements last month compared to March 2001.
In total 155,733 air traffic movements were handled, down by 4.6% on last year’s figures. Traffic for the first three months of the year was down 4.7% compared to the same quarter in 2002.
NATS chief executive Richard Everitt said: “Our monthly Air Traffic Guide is a definitive record of the volume of traffic using UK-controlled airspace. The figures for March show a reduction of 11 per cent in our key market, the North Atlantic, but the overall performance was helped by much lower reductions in international and domestic flights due mainly to an increase in low-cost carrier operations.
“Although there has been an increase in the number of people travelling by air, this has yet to translate into a significant increase in the number of flights. For NATS, this is key, because our revenues directly relate to the number of aircraft our controllers handle and not the number of passengers on board each aircraft.”
The figures cover air traffic movements handled in UK airspace by NATS’ new £623million Swanwick centre together with the West Drayton, Manchester and Prestwick locations.
See our previous stories:
19 Feb 2002: NATS denies financial crisis reports
28-Jan-2002 Swanwick air control centre opens for business
27-Jul-2001 Airlines take over running of air traffic control
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