UK air traffic increases in the first two months of 2015

January and February 2015 saw the greatest increase in UK air traffic compared to the same months last year. NATS, the UK’s major air traffic management company, handled more than 159,000 flights in each of the first two months of 2015.

NATS handled 164,805 flights in January, an increase of 1.6%, compared to the same month last year, with 412 minutes of delays attributable to NATS. However, the result showed a 65 percent reduction on the 1190 minutes in January 2014.

There was a 3.1% increase of traffic last month compared to that in February 2014, as NATS handled 159,439 flights.

London City Airport led the growth in traffic for the first two months in 2015 with a 16.4% rise in January and a 24.8% increase in February. This was due to an increase in ski flights to continental Europe and additional capacity routes made to Edinburgh and Dublin.

Stansted’s traffic levels increased 12% in January and Southampton continued its run of strong growth with a 13.7% rise in flights in February.

February saw ‘Non-transatlantic overflights’ lead the market segment with a growth of 7.8%, followed by domestic flights, which recorded a 7.0% rise – this was the fourth consecutive month to see an increase.

The domestic market segment also saw an increase. Additional routes added to the airline winter schedules, predominantly at Bournemouth and East Midlands airports fuelled the growth.

NATS attributable delay totalled 4,939 minutes in February – a 5.8% increase on the comparable delay performance recorded in the same month last year. This is thought to be due to the high demand of returning traffic at the end of the school half term holiday.

Martin Rolfe, Managing Director Operations, NATS, said: “The February half term is always a particularly busy time for us in managing that sheer demand of traffic, which is why there was an increase in delay.

“However, it has been a successful start to the year with NATS safely managing an increase in traffic in both January and February compared to last year’s figures. We’re glad that we were able to continue to provide a safe and efficient operation for our airline customers.”