All this debate about which County Gatwick is in is symptomatic of the problem in NATS.
We get so worried about such details and spend huge amounts of time and resources to ensure we use the "best maps [to ISO 9002], best people and meticulous research to get the gold plated answer" when really it don't matter!
Just put Gatwick Airport on the envelope and it will get there.
Privatisation stuffed us by not having regulated airports (unlike Germany), pension costs on the company (unlike Germany) plus loans against the company to buy it.
Having HUGE HQ costs (unlike the DFS company set up to compete) means there's no way NATS can compete on price despite paring the operational stuff to the minimum (and below!)
We set up FerroNATS to do the same in Spain, but there's no way they'll get the big Airports.
The crazy scenario looming in the future - European Countries will provide ATC at their own large important airports (except the UK cos we didn't regulate them) and have foreign companies do the rest of the country's airports cheaper!
Sadly, I can see NSL collapsing, helped by "advisors" who once worked for us - what happened to commercial confidentiality in their contracts?
I just hope NERL isn't in a similar position regarding competition, otherwise last one to leave turn off the radar.
