Punctuality stays high as air traffic grows into summer

NATS, the UK’s major provider of air traffic services, safely handled 236,539 flights in May, a 12.4 per cent increase on April’s traffic, and an increase of 0.8 per cent on May last year.

Eurocontrol figures show that NATS handled 24.5 per cent of Europe’s traffic in May but was accountable for only 3.8 per cent of Europe’s overall delay. Some 97.4 per cent of flights received no NATS-attributable delay; for the 2.6 per cent of flights which had a NATS-attributable delay, the average was 11.9 minutes.

The market with most growth was transatlantic overflights which increased by 4.1 per cent year on year. Non-transatlantic overflights decreased by 2.2 per cent.

Steve Fox, Director Operations Control, said: “I’m pleased that we continue to maintain punctuality as flight numbers are increasing. During May half term, we handled over 8,287 flights in a single day, just short of last summer’s peak. We will see more days like that through June, July and August, when sustained high demand will become the norm, with 8,000-plus flight days a regular feature.”