Nats wants to double UK commercial flights
 

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/new...cle1364880.ece

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.

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

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!!

that explains all the hot air!!

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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?

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!

Steady on chaps
 

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.

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!

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:

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!!

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.

Actually - we do ;)

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.

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/l...re/4176456.stm

Some interesting extracts: And, before the changes: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 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

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.

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

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.

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

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