NATS want to double UK commercial flights
is complete codswallop. NATS are having to restructure airspace due to government policy.
Thats the Government who will increase taxes on car users etc as part of the green policy, yet want to increase numbers of runways etc.
Mind you what do you expect from a political party that berated the tories for selling of public assets, then claimed "our skies are not for sale", thenm sold off NATS and saddled the company with hundreds of millions in debt.
As for Steve Charlish - is he really a commercial pilot?? How can someone in the industry be so ignorant of the facts? NATS are planning new airspace
to enable it to cope with the predicted rise in flight numbers.
It is doing this now because it takes years to design, develop, test and implement new procedures and airspace. It would be irresponsible for NATS to stick their heads in the sand and try to get by with airspace that was on the whole, designed years ago, and is now starting to show it's limits.
As an aside, NATS are continually looking at ways of changing procedures etc to help it cope with traffic which has been increasing year on year. It can normally get away with small tweaks to the system, however the predicted growth needs a re-vamp of the airspace, which is what NATS are looking at, at their own expense.
NATS continues to develop, continues to control increases in numbers of aircraft in some of the most complex and congested airspace in the world, yet continues to decrease ATC attributable delays into mere
seconds per aircraft, and has a safety record which although already second to none, is getting even better.