UK flights increase as summer hots up

UK air traffic in June increased by 2.5 per cent on the same month last year as NATS, the UK’s major provider of air traffic services, safely handled 237,215 flights, up more than 2,600 on May.  This averaged almost 8,000 flights per day.  The busiest day so far this year was Sunday 27 June, when NATS handled 8,219 flights.

The market segment with most growth was non-transatlantic overflights, which increased by 9.2 per cent, with particular growth in flights using UK airspace to fly between Norway and Spain and Norway and the Netherlands.  The busiest UK routes were with Spain, up 5.0 per cent and Italy, up 6.0 per cent.  Domestic UK flights, however, dropped by 3.6 per cent.

According to Eurocontrol, NATS handled 23.9 per cent of Europe’s traffic in June, and was accountable for just 1.2 per cent of Europe’s delay.  99.98 per cent of flights received no NATS-attributable delay; the average NATS delay per delayed flight was 16 minutes.

Kathryn Leahy, Chief Operations Officer, said: “There is no longer a relevant comparison with the 2019 pre-Covid peak as the whole European aviation environment is different now.  We are already exceeding 2019 traffic on some sectors and at certain times of the day and as we approach the summer peak, that will become even more intense.”