Aviation FAQs

What does National Air Traffic Services (NATS) do?

National Air Traffic Services (NATS) are responsible for providing air traffic control services over the UK, and charge airlines for this service.

NATS is a public private partnership between the Airline Group, which holds 42%, NATS staff who hold 5%, UK airport operator LHR Airports Limited with 4%, and the Government which holds 49% (the golden share).

NATS is split into two main companies:

• NATS En-Route PLC (NERL). Under part 1 of the Transport Act 2000, NERL is licenced by the Government as the sole provider of civilian air traffic control (ATC) over the UK. Under the 2000 Act, NERL is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) which determines the how much it can charge airlines for its services.
• NATS (Services) Ltd (NSL), the unregulated business, provides air traffic control services at many airports in the UK and overseas.

The 2012 Library briefing Aviation: National Air Traffic Services (NATS) explains how NATS was created and is regulated.

The CAA’s economic regulation of NERL uses five-year periods known as Control Periods. In October 2023 the CAA approved a 26 per cent increase in NERL’s charges to apply over the period 2023 – 2027. The CAA’s Final Decision for the NR23 price control review provides full details of this increase.

In an October 2023 press release about the decision to increase NATS charges, the CAA said the new charges were “in 2020 prices… expected to stay below the average level experienced in the price control period from 2015 to 2019, prior to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and should remain broadly in line with NERL’s European counterparts”.

The increase attracted criticism from airlines, especially given that NATS had experienced a temporary failure in its air traffic control services in August 2023. This led to widespread flight disruption, and airlines being legally obliged to pay to accommodate and feed passengers whose flights were cancelled. This obligation – the “Right to care” – derives from retained EU regulation 261.

On 18 October 2023, the Transport Select Committee held a non-inquiry session on the air traffic control disruption of 28 August 2023. When discussing NATS air traffic control charges, Jonathan Hinkles, Chief Executive of Loganair said:

NATS air traffic control charges are apparently reducing. They are not. This year we have paid over £1 million more to NATS for the same air traffic control services as we had last year... On top of that, we have these delay and disruption costs.

Michael O’Leary, Chief Executive of Ryanair told the committee that it was unfair that airlines had to pay for the failure of NATS:

We have spent £15 million in right-to-care expenses. [Passengers] won’t get compensation because, clearly, it is not the responsibility of the airline, but we still have to pay 15 million quid in right-to-care expenses. EU261 or, God help us, UK261 says we can recover that except when it comes to ATC providers. Apparently, we are not allowed to recover it from them. They can screw up all over the place and the airlines still have to be the insurer of last resort. […] You [NATS] should be reimbursing the airlines for the right-to-care expenses that you inflicted upon us on bank holiday Monday, 28 August.

The CAA is undertaking an Independent Review into the NATS technical issue.

What enforcement powers does the CAA have and will it get more?

The CAA has certain civil enforcement powers granted under Part 8 of the Enterprise Act 2002., which mean it can require airlines to disclose information and make commitments to improve. The Government has said it will legislate to give the CAA greater enforcement powers, including the power to impose fines, when parliamentary time allows.

Currently, the CAA’s powers allow it to seek information and undertakings from aviation companies, if it believes they are breaching consumer law in a way that harms the collective interests of consumers. For example in July 2023, following a high number of complaints that the airline Wizz Air had not been processing compensation for delayed/cancelled flights, the CAA used its powers to request that Wizz Air make undertakings to improve its procedures.

The Transport Committee and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee (BEIS) committee each published reports in 2022, both of which recommended that the CAA be given additional enforcement powers, as its current powers were inadequate.

The Transport Committee report said:

The Civil Aviation Authority urgently requires the power to impose financial penalties on airlines that do not provide complete refunds to consumers when they are required to do so by law.

In early 2022, the DfT consulted on several reforms to aviation consumer policy, aimed at improving air passenger rights. The consultation included proposals to give the CAA more powers to enforce consumer protection laws, including on individual cases, and not just those that fall within the definition of collective harm covered by the Enterprise Act.

In their June 2023 response to the consultation, the DfT accepted that greater enforcement powers “are needed for the CAA to ensure compliance with consumer protections” and the Government would legislate when parliamentary time allows to provide such powers.” The response said that these powers might include the ability to impose fines.

Separately, the Government commissioned a review into the work of the CAA in 2022. In 2023 it endorsed all its 24 recommendations. One of these was to increase the CAA’s enforcement powers, which the Government said could positively influence airlines’ behaviour:

The CAA has recognised that additional powers would make a positive difference and that having more effective enforcement powers would potentially make those it regulates think harder about how they behave in relation to consumers.

Other topics addressed in this paper

This paper also answers FAQs on the following topics:

General queries about aviation

Aviation policy responsibilities; Brexit; pilots; climate change

Passenger rights

Complaints; disabled passengers, delays and compensation; airlines going into administration

Airports and aircrafts

Air accidents; aviation noise; changes to flightpaths; Heathrow expansion; drones

Further information on related topics can be found in Library briefings on

• Regional Airports,
• Aviation, decarbonisation and climate change and on the
• Aviation topical page of the Commons Library website.