Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that National Air Traffic Services maintains sufficient trained staff to prevent flight delays.

NATS, the leading provider of Air Traffic Control services in the UK and other providers operate privately and have responsibility for ensuring that they have sufficient staff and resources to safely and efficiently operate these services.

My department will soon introduce secondary legislation which will enable the Civil Aviation Authority to accept the previous experience of third country and UK military air traffic control officers (ATCOs) towards achieving a UK civil licence. This measure will have a positive impact and help to increase ATCO resourcing levels in the UK.