Record for air traffic control

Business has been growing for air traffic controllers

Air traffic controllers have reached a new record for the number of flights handled in a 24-hour period.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats) handled 6,953 flights on 28 May beating the previous high of 6,855 set in June last year.

Nats also revealed an increase in the total flights processed during May - which are up 4.3% to 191,407.

But Nats said the improvement should be seen in the context of the Iraq war which, it says, reduced flights.

The commercial airline industry experienced a downturn in the number of flights during the war in Iraq in April and May last year.

Passenger increase

As flight numbers continued rise, the efficiency of air traffic controllers remained high as 98% of flights experienced no delay attributable to air traffic controllers.

The average delay per flight was about 18 seconds.

All areas of Nats business grew last month, with domestic flights up 1%, transatlantic arrivals and departures up 16.5% and transatlantic overflights up 11.3%.

The effect of the air traffic control computer system failure last week will not be shown until figures for June are released next month.

Thousands of travellers were delayed after an early-morning glitch at the centre in West Drayton in west London.

The figures come a day after airports operator BAA said it handled 11.7 million passengers in May, an increase of 7.8% over the same month a year earlier.

The performance included a 12.4% rise at Heathrow.