Nats wants to double UK commercial flights

[Ye Olde Pilot]

This should cause howls of protest from the anti-aviation brigade in the UK over the coming weeks.

In a document leaked to The Sunday Times Nats outlines plans to restructure Britain’s existing air corridors and add new ones in preparation for a doubling of the number of flights over the UK from 2.4m a year today to almost 5m by 2030. A confidential aeronautical map drawn up by Nats points to sharp increases in the number of aircraft using the 15 or so air corridors that criss-cross Britain, and the creation of several new flight paths and six new stacking areas where aircraft fly in circles while waiting for landing slots.
Steve Charlish, a commercial pilot who has led a campaign against increasing air traffic over the East Midlands, said: “If Nats were proposing a new motorway or bypass you could object but one thing you cannot do is touch the airspace above because that is owned by the crown - you’ve got no right of objection.”
Nats is, however, merely implementing an expansion policy drawn up by the government and set out in its 2003 aviation white paper. In it, Labour announced that it wanted to see new runways built at Stansted, Heathrow, Birmingham and Edinburgh. It also proposed increasing capacity at numerous other airports including Coventry, Doncaster, Lydd, near Dover, Kent International at Manston, Bristol and Wolverhampton. Overall, about 40 airports were given the go-ahead to expand.

full story here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1364880.ece

[anotherthing]

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.

[Chilli Monster]

As for Steve Charlish - is he really a commercial pilot?? How can someone in the industry be so ignorant of the facts?

Again, another case of selective journalism - he's a Commercial Balloon pilot :rolleyes:

[halo]

Not to mention the fact that the NATS En-Route side is bound by price capping set by the CAA in order to reduce the costs passed on to the airlines.

In short.... NATS bears the cost of the restructuring of airspace as a part-privatised industry left with mountains of debt by a Labour government under a financial regulation forced upon them by the CAA in order to reduce costs to the airlines that will inevitably benefit from the restructuring of the airspace by the increased no./more efficient operation of their flights.

Maybe it should all be paid for by the new tax that is being levied on passengers.... sounds only fair... bet it doesn't happen though!!

[anotherthing]

Again, another case of selective journalism - he's a Commercial Balloon pilot


that explains all the hot air!!

[antilla]

Quote:
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.


Surely that makes NATS a commercial company that stands to benefit from a growth in air traffic.

Can this development all be attributed to altruism?

[anotherthing]

antilla

part of 'the deal' when privatised was that NATS was to be run as a 'not for profits' company (though how this ties in with shareholders I do not know).

The fact of the matter is, NATS had over £600 million debt passed on from the governement. It made 'profits' last year of around £60 million. So with loans etc and interest, how long is it going to take to repay that debt?

Coupled with the fact that to keep up with air traffic numbers, NATS has to invest in future systems etc, therefore incurring more cost.

So a question back at you antilla - if this growth (non NATS attributable) is going to happen (at the benefit of the governement thru taxes, the airlines thru revenue); how can it happen without the so called altruistic motives of NATS in redeveloping airspace?

If the airspace is not redeveloped, we cannot cope with the predicted numbers - fact.

The numbers are rising and will continue to do so unless governement and airlines put a stop to it - fact.

If NATS do not develop an infrastructure that can cope with this, then
NATS will wither and die, and be sold to soemone else (most likely a foreign investor, on a for profit basis)

NATS will make a profit from overflight increase (if you look at the money it makes though, it's not a huge amount); but this money will mainly need to be re invested. Swanwick, nice, shiny and fairly new, will need replacing with newer systems....... work has to commence now to make sure those systems are in place in a timely manner.

So altruistic maybe - but only because if the company is run in the manner it should be as agreed when flogged off to bolster governement coffers, it needs to make money to develop.

It's not a one off job - NATS cannot design a system then walk away and reap dividends evermore... of only it were that simple!!

The other option is to let things stand as they are, then watch as the UKs economy falters.

The Governement are not entirely stupid - the amount of money that is produced through the air industry is vast, coupled with taxes through flight supplements etc, the Governement know that the country would go to rats if this infrastructure was not developed and maintianed!

[John Farley]

My reading of the situation is that NATS are doing forward planning in case air travel over the UK grows as some forecasts suggest.

Now what else would you expect (and require) a professional organisation charged with handling air traffic do? Sit on their hands?

NATS has no more control over the amount of air traffic than I do, they are just lumbered with handling how ever much market forces cause.

I would expect correspondents on this forum to appreciate that.

[anotherthing]

John,

I think if you read the posts, antilla is the only one who may be in dissagreement with you!!

Ye olde pilot was, i think, merely putting up the link for comment and to bring it to the websites attention!

[antilla]

Quote:
If the airspace is not redeveloped, we cannot cope with the predicted numbers - fact.


I don't dispute that for a moment, but I am still trying to get my head around where those predictions came from.

This government publicly deplored the old process of "Predict and Provide" in connection with the road network, yet it seems to have engaged in precisely that process when deciding that new runways were needed to cope with the predicted growth in aviation.

Perhaps I just need to be more cynical of politicians' utterances. :confused:

[anotherthing]

Antilla

I may be overly cynical... but then again, amnongst many others but quotes such as "our skies are not for sale", "Iraq has WMDs that can be deployed at 45 mins notice" and "There is no A10 HUD footage" tend to make me so!!

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Quote:
As for Steve Charlish - is he really a commercial pilot?? How can someone in the industry be so ignorant of the facts?
Again, another case of selective journalism - he's a Commercial Balloon pilot :rolleyes:

Sorry Chilli.. we do not know that. Why has no one slated this fact before?Where are the likes of Balpa and others when it comes to this sort of story emerging. Probably down the pub counting up their pension rights!

John Farley presents a more balanced view for me.

[Chilli Monster]

"Again, another case of selective journalism - he's a Commercial Balloon pilot :rolleyes:"

Sorry Chilli.. we do not know that.

Actually - we do ;)

[The SSK]

Any long-term development which is taking place in European airspace is happening under the umbrella of the Single European Sky programme, which will deliver huge environmental benefits.

Traffic doubling by 2030 - that's an average annual increase of just over 3%. Aircraft will be much more eco-friendly by then, airspace improvements will have delivered huge savings in green-house gas production - all in all total emissions will not be significantly greater than today, maybe even less.

[Flying Lawyer]

Mr Charlish seems to be in the habit of telling the press he's a commercial pilot when promoting the various campaign against (powered) aviation protest groups which he's either founded or in which he's an activist.

In another article: 'Steve, a 47-year-old commercial pilot' said many people might regard the Leicestershire village where he lives as "the back of beyond," but "I chose to live here because I wanted splendid isolation ..... no industry, no major roads, no trains and in the middle of the night there is a dead silence and then all of a sudden... (the noise of an aircraft.)"
He claimed then (2005) it had been more than two years since he had a decent night's sleep. :rolleyes:
'When the planes come over head it sounds like thunder and I'm 26 nautical miles from the airport,' he adds.
Poor chap. He'd found a place with no industry, no major roads and no trains and then aeroplanes go and spoil his rural idyll. :)

He also featured in this item on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/4176456.stm

Some interesting extracts:East Leicestershire residents made 475 complaints in the last three months.
The airport's Brain Conway said: "One person has complained 203 times, another complained 65 times which gives you an idea of the impact on people." The complaints came from 111 people in the east of the county affected by flight paths for the first time.
And, before the changes:
In the three months leading up to the flight path changes, when planes flew over more people, there were 854 complaints from all areas.
Three quarters of them came from one person - who submitted 615 comments about aircraft movements.


Given a choice between living under a flight path or living next to someone like Mr Churlish, I'm happy I live where I do - under a flight path. IMHO, his choice to live 'in the back of beyond' is a great blessing to those who might otherwise have him as a neighbour.



antilla This government publicly deplored the old process of "Predict and Provide" in connection with the road network, yet it seems to have engaged in precisely that process when deciding that new runways were needed to cope with the predicted growth in aviation.
Perhaps it suited them to say that at the time, but realise "Predict and Provide" is a sensible process?
I hope so. (Re road, rail and and air transport.)


FL

[Standard Noise]

Commercial balloon pilot or not, he's definitely a balloon!

This fine piece of journalism (yeah right!:D ) belies the fact that air traffic is on the increase. All NATS is trying to do is plan for the projected growth. It's a shame that our government doesn't plan the remaining parts of our so called 'transport system' in the same professional way NATS does with airspace changes.

[Lookatthesky]

in a document leaked to The Sunday Times from Nats, the company that emerged from National Air Traffic Services and now manages Britain’s air traffic control systems


NATS emerged from NATS eh??? :ugh: :ugh: :mad:

[Loki]

Lookatthesky:

In effect, yes Nats used to stand for National Air Traffic Services.....in a "rebranding" exercise some while ago, the initials stopped standing for anything (bit like BAA I think). Why this was done is a mystery however.

[Arkady]

No, Nats emerged from National Air Traffic Services (as stated) in a fimble - esque explosion of swirly stripes and colours! :\

[WindSheer]

Ha ha that should be fun......"speedbird 4567823676349 climb flight level 355, speedbird 457890348457934285723 climb flight level 356"....:p

[MNT]

NATS wanted to get rid of the "National" element as commercial company it wanted to be seen as an international player.

[RJC]

This has hit the front page in Cambridge.

Headline: Plane Crazy
Strapline: Fury over new flight path plans for Cambridgeshire.

Made it to the front page of the website too, think is the link to the story...

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/region_wide/2007/02/13/14e3d221-5563-4332-84d6-37566c0c19ac.lpf

[llondel]

Ah yes, that most impressive of news reporting organs. Famed for barking up trees at random, jumping on passing bandwagons and having sensational headlines in the hope that people will buy it.

I was interested in their remark about "Stacking areas, allowing up to four planes to circle while waiting for a landing slot". Surely you can have more than four in a stack?

As for dumping fuel, I can't quite see any aircraft doing this from choice, given the cost.

[hangten]

Nats wants to double UK commercial flights

i think the title 'NATS wants to double UK commercial flight CAPACITY' would have been somewhat more accurate.

efficient road, rail and now more than ever air connections are vital to the economic success of this country. people like Mr Churlish seem to have no real idea of how the affluence of the world around them directly effects their own well-being. the vast majority of the money in this country comes from corporate enterprises which rely on air travel to do their business, and it is this money which feeds our huge service industry sector - and even more frivilous enterprises such as, oh , i don't know, recreational hot air ballooning. :rolleyes:

i am concerned about possible environmental aspects of all forms of transport. in the long term, rather than slowly choke UK PLC by leaving her arteries to get clogged we should be using the money that she makes to find viable clean alternatives.

[GRAHAM]

NATS (en route) Limited - or 'NERL' - gathers its income by charging aircraft for using routes in UK airspace. These aircraft are charged for the number of route sectors flown through. To set up NERL a lot of money was borrowed from the government and that has to be paid back. A while back NERL wanted to hike-up the charge for the use of its sectors, the fees being referred to as 'chargeable service units', or CSUs. The CAA (or most likely its masters across town in Westminster) wouldn't allow this, presumably to remain competitive and not discouraging flights between the European mainland and the USA from transiting UK airspace and control. So, what's the answer? Create more routes. More routes = more CSU income while keeping the price down. Result: loan being paid off and everyone's happy! Happy, that is, for those in the business and *** the poor ******* below on the ground. If you really want to delve further, look at the list of shareholders in NERL - I seem to recall that the BAA (or was it BA? - I can't remember) pension fund is in there somewhere! Is this assessment wide of the mark? BTW, something like 75%-80% of England lies under lower controlled airspace, with Doncaster/Robin Hood adding another 900 plus square miles.

UK Government policy on civil aviation needs a serious overhaul in view of the rapid environmental changes taking place. 'Predict and provide' has no serious place in planning these days and 'managed demand' with a global view is the sensible and enlightened approach. Most of us have children to hand things over to - what will we leave behind for them?

[MNT]

NERL has no shareholders its a wholly owned subsidary of NATS which does have shareholders. These include a number of airlines, BAA and the UK goverment. NATS is charged with safe and expeditious movement of aircraft in UK airspace and has to respond to goverment policy which at present is looking to increase the number of runways in the south so the air space will need to be modified accordingly. Its Government policy that you nees to change!

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Perhaps I am missing something but can someone explain how UK ATC comes free?:ugh:

[Gonzo]

Perhaps I am missing something but can someone explain how UK ATC comes free?:ugh:


YOP,

Sorry, to which post are you referring? Who's claimed it's 'free'?

[11K-AVML]

A while back NERL wanted to hike-up the charge for the use of its sectors, the fees being referred to as 'chargeable service units', or CSUs. presumably to remain competitive and not discouraging flights between the European mainland and the USA from transiting UK airspace and control. So, what's the answer? Create more routes. More routes = more CSU income while keeping the price down.
...
that is, for those in the business and *** the poor ******* below on the ground.

Is this assessment wide of the mark? BTW, something like 75%-80% of England lies under lower controlled airspace, with Doncaster/Robin Hood adding another 900 plus square miles.
Since you asked, yes I think it is wide of the mark.

Just how many of these "transiting" aircraft do you expect to be flying at an altitude that directly affects "*** the poor ******* below on the ground"?

Furthermore, I'd been interested to hear how you would expect aircraft operators to avoid "transiting UK airspace" when flying "between the European mainland and the USA" ? Would taking a longer route, or using a congested route liable to delays which thereby caused a greater fuel consumption have a lesser effect upon the environment? :hmm:

[11K-AVML]

Perhaps I am missing something but can someone explain how UK ATC comes free?:ugh:
Are you refering to GA aircraft?

[GRAHAM]

Hello 11K - you are, of course absolutely right. The North Atlantic routes can't do anything else but transit UK airspace and indeed negotiations are taking place regarding fuel-saving Great Circle routes. However, we have seen a pretty big increase in north-south (and other) routes within UK airspace of late. For example, south to north UL613 was added not long ago, as was west-east P155 and UP155, over our neck of the woods. Add to this reduced vertical separation minima - all to cope with increasing demand/avoidance of delays - and you have a growing environmental problem. If you have airports facilitating 24h movements, as we have with a/c taking the P155, you can't guarantee a good night's sleep on the ground beneath such routes. Even a/c passing over at FL245, particularly turboprops, create something of a nuisance, especially during the night. I don't really wish to enter into a protracted debate on this but a/c on upper airways do generate 50 to 55dB(A) at ground level - enough noise to interfere with sleep. The point I was attempting to make is that what we are currently doing is unsustainable - it all comes back to the question 'Is your journey really necessary?'

[Not Long Now]

Come on now, you can't seriously be saying you're disturbed by a turboprop passing overhead at FL240!!! If that's disturbing your sleep you must be woken every time a mouse farts in the woods!

[GRAHAM]

Well, unless you've tried it for yourself don't be too judgmental. Out here in the sticks the ambient night-time noise level is close to 30dB(A) and quite often a bit less. Thus, any noise, whether it be murine flatulence or aircraft throbbing overhead at two in the morning giving out >50dB(A), register as being more than a hundred times noisier than the background. It's the contrast in sound levels that registers on consciousness and consequently disturbs sleep. Unfortunately, most people do not habituate to the noise made by aircraft - shown by recent studies on the effects of aircraft noise on children's educational attainment. Natural sounds, such as rain, rustling leaves or babbling brooks do not have the same negative effect. However, we digress from the original topic, or do we..?

[BEagle]

You must have some damn big mice where you live......

A turboprop overhead at FL245 - even the Antheus - is as naught when compared to the gentle murmur of a Vickers FunBus taking off at 0-dark-00 in these here parts.... Swift, Silent, Serene...??

[hangten]

or the full reverse thrust of a certain nigerian cargo airline's (that no longer frequents us) dc-10s landing at 03:00 when you've got the window open cos it's a warm summers night! and i used to be 10 miles away...

unfortunately aircraft are part of the great transport machine needed to keep this country running. that turboprop at 240 might disturb your sleep but it may well be taking a letter you posted that afternoon up north. and you expect it to arrive next day... it's not full of smiling punters with rubber dinghys and sunglasses, whose journeys are 'not necessary'.

you want that mail to go by road or rail, then speak to your transport secretary about improving those services (or reducing taxes) to make them economically viable. aviation is a booming industry for the same reason any is. supply and demand.

[GRAHAM]

The more stones there are to be turned over, the more inconvenient stuff you find underneath. I did draw attention to 'sustainability' and the future of our children and their children. For example, what percentage of mail is 'junk' and what would the preferred mode of transport be for the mail if all modes were taxed equally, driving market forces on a level playing field? The UK has a steadily increasing Balance of Payments deficit - now in the region of £60 billion. We have a mounting trade imbalance in that we're importing huge amounts of fast-moving consumer goods and export much less stuff by value. We also have a colossal tourism imbalance in that there are more UK residents spending abroad than there are inbound tourists, value-wise. Those profiting from short-termism don't appear to give a stuff and are taking a blinkered view. Blind-siding these issues is paying the school fees and the mortgage for some, but for how long? In the meantime, we've seen a massive loss in home-grown engineering and manufacturing in these parts and all we can offer many of our youngsters is stacking, packing, sorting and despatching from the parts of our region suffering from the blight of 'shed rash'. Three cheers for irresponsible globalism, though I've a nasty feeling that it's all going to come crashing down around our ears not too far off in the future. Sorry to be gloomy - it's just that we pessimists are well-informed optimists.