We are the UK's leading provider of air traffic control services. In a typical year pre-Covid, we would handle over 2.5 million flights and 250 million passengers travelling over the UK and across the North Atlantic. If you’ve been a passenger on a commercial aircraft flying in UK airspace then it's highly likely that we’ve have handled your flight.
Outside of the UK we offer air traffic services to customers including airports, airlines, air traffic service providers and governments. We currently provide these across parts of Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
We exist to make the skies an even safer and more efficient environment for aviation.
With this in mind, two things drive everything we do. The first is safety, a duty of care for the skies. It's what we've always done and what we'll always do. The second is a constant striving for improvement to ensure aviation best meets the needs of a changing world.
At NATS our purpose is core to our being, and we define it as; Advancing aviation, keeping the skies safe.
Our people
We have around 4,500 employees working at NATS dedicated to advancing aviation, keeping the skies safe. That includes 1,700 Air Traffic Controllers, 650 Air Traffic Service Assistants, 1,000 engineers, and 1,000 other specialists.
We value diversity and strive to create a positive and friendly working environment where everybody is encouraged to make the most of their potential.
You can find out more about working at NATS in our Careers section.
Our locations
In the UK, we provide air traffic services at 14 airports (including Heathrow) and manage all UK upper airspace from our two air traffic control centres located at Swanwick in Hampshire and Prestwick in Ayrshire. We also have around a thousand industry specialists based at our offices in Hampshire and Central London.
Outside of the UK we provide air traffic services at Gibraltar Airport and, in a joint venture with Ferrovial – ‘FerroNATS’ - at nine airports across Spain. To support our growing business in the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions we have also set up offices in XX and YY.
This centre started operating in January 2002, when it began handling aircraft flying over England and Wales. The operations room in Swanwick combines:
London Area Control Centre (LACC), which manages en route traffic in the London Flight Information Region. This includes en route airspace over England and Wales up to the Scottish border.
London Terminal Control Centre (LTCC), which handles traffic below 24,500 feet flying to or from London’s airports. This area, one of the busiest in Europe, extends south and east towards the coast, west towards Bristol and north to near Birmingham.
Military Air Traffic Control. Military controllers provide services to civil and military aircraft operating outside controlled airspace. They work closely with civilian controllers to ensure safe co-ordination of traffic.
With the opening of the new Prestwick Centre in 2010, we consolidated our air traffic control centres from four to two – reducing costs, and increasing security and operational efficiency.
The operations room in Prestwick combines:
Manchester Area Control Centre (MACC), which controls aircraft over much of the north of England, the Midlands and north Wales from 2,500 feet up to 28,500 feet.
Scottish Area Control Centre (ScACC), which controls aircraft over Scotland, Northern Ireland, Northern England and the North Sea from 2,500 feet up to 66,000 feet.
Oceanic Area Control Centre (OACC), which controls the airspace over the eastern half of the North Atlantic from the Azores (45 degrees north) to a boundary with Iceland (61 degrees north).
Airports
Our people provide air traffic services at 13 major UK airports as well as Gibraltar International.
Major airports we operate at include:
Aberdeen Airport
Belfast City Airport
Belfast International Airport
Bristol Airport
Cardiff Airport
Farnborough Airport
Gibraltar International Airport
Glasgow Airport
Heathrow Airport
London City Airport
Luton Airport
Manchester Airport
Southampton Airport
Stansted Airport
Our ownership
A public private partnership
NATS is a public private partnership between the Airline Group, which holds 42%, NATS staff who hold 5%, UK airport operator LHR Airports Limited with 4%, and the Government which holds 49% (the golden share).
Our Company (the NATS group) provides air traffic control services through two principle operating subsidiaries, NATS en route plc (known as ‘NERL’) and NATS Services (NSL). Both are regulated by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
NERL operates under license issued by the UK Government as the single entity entrusted with managing UK upper airspace. It is subject to economic regulation on prices and revenues by the CAA.
NATS Services is not economically regulated by the CAA and is free to compete in the commercial marketplace. It provides air traffic control and related products and services to commercial customers in the UK and abroad.
Our airspace
All airspace around the world is divided into Flight Information Regions (FIRs). Each FIR is managed by a controlling authority that ensures air traffic services are provided to the aircraft flying within it. The CAA is the controlling authority for the UK and NATS provides air traffic services for them.
UK Airspace is divided into three FIRs; London, Scottish and Shanwick Oceanic. The London FIR covers England and Wales. The Scottish FIR covers Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Shanwick Oceanic FIR covers a region of airspace totalling 700,000 square miles over the North East Atlantic.
We manage all upper airspace within these FIRs and pre-covid a typical day would see around 7,000 aircraft flying in UK skies. These include leisure, commercial, cargo and military aircraft. Find out more in our Airspace section.
Our history
In 2020 we celebrated 100 years of Air Traffic Control (ATC). Growing from humble beginnings using lamps for signals to a globally connected digital network, ATC has revolutionised the aviation industry.
ATC for commercial flights started in 1920 in the UK. Croydon Airport was first used as London’s air terminal, but all the controller could do was give the pilot a red or green light for take-off and acknowledge position reports sent by radio. After the war, ATC became the responsibility of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the network of air routes we use today began to develop in the 1950s.
Our forerunner, National Air Traffic Control Services (NATCS), was established in December 1962. It covered civil ATC but liaised with the MoD (RAF) in areas where military traffic needed to cross civilian routes. When the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was established in April 1972, NATCS became part of it and shortened its name to NATS.
In 1992 it was recognised that as a service provider NATS should be operated at a distance from its regulator, the CAA. With that in mind, NATS was re-organised into a Companies Act company in April 1996 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the CAA.
A Public-Private Partnership for NATS was proposed in June 1998, and enshrined in the Transport Act 2000. The Government chose the Airline Group (AG) as the preferred partner in March 2001 and the transaction was completed in July 2001 with the sale of 46% to the AG and the devise of 5% to staff. Since this time, and weathering the impacts of 9-11, Volcanic Ash and Covid-19, the Company has continued to perform well both financially and operationally with a world leading safety record.
You can find out more about the history of ATC on our ATC100 pages that celebrated 100 years of Air Traffic Control in 2020.
