Reducing delays

Modernising our airspace will help prevent rising delays for holidaymakers, businesses, and cargo alike.

When a portion of airspace reaches maximum capacity the need to maintain safety, restricts the number of additional flights that air traffic controllers can manage. When this happens, air traffic controllers respond by:

• Slowing flights down and directing aircraft onto longer, less efficient flight paths
• Directing arriving flights into holding stacks – these are the circling patterns planes make as they wait to land – delaying their scheduled arrival
• Instructing flights that are ready to take off to hold on the ground, delaying their scheduled departure.

Modernisation aims to reduce the likelihood of these things happening through the implementation of more sophisticated technology. Instead of routes being based on ground-based navigation beacons, we will move to satellite navigation routes – known as Performance Based Navigation (PBN). This switch will allow aircraft to follow routes with a high level of accuracy and absorb delays enroute, as well as decrease the need for holding stacks. It will also allow aircraft to get higher, quicker, reducing noise for those on the ground.

This will mean passengers experience fewer flight delays and service disruptions, a more reliable service and shorter journeys.