The aviation sector and its supply chain generate over £20 billion per year in economic output and directly employs circa 220,000 people in the UK. At Heathrow alone, goods worth £133 billion were shipped in and out last year, more than the combined value of goods transiting through the UK’s two largest ports, Felixstowe and Southampton.
Aviation is on average a much more productive sector than the rest of the economy; each pound spent on upgrading aviation infrastructure is expected to generate over £5 in return. In addition aviation is a significant growth sector within key regions for UK trade, for example China, the Middle East and Turkey have ambitious plans to more than double their capacity.
But, the true nature of the UK aviation industry cannot be visualised more clearly than in this video produced this week by air traffic service provider NATS, effectively a guided tour to some of what makes UK aviation work.
UK airspace is busy, complex and there is a lot going on. Each year NATS manages around 2.2 million movements, peaking at over 8,000 a day, with only 5.5 seconds delay per flight currently attributable to the provider. Obviously there are the flows of large aircraft from the airports into and out of the UK, but there is also a lot of activity outside controlled airspace. This visualisation has been designed, according to NATS, to help visualise the breadth and depth of UK aviation and why airspace is such an important asset.
The day starts with the bow wave of transatlantic traffic heading towards the UK on their organised and separated tracks. This is quickly joined by traffic from Europe and the first waves of departures from UK airports. Over a short period of time the traffic levels grow to show the main trunk roads of airspace as well as the hubs around London, Manchester and central Scotland.
The visualisation then moves on to give a unique view of the holding stacks over London and how they are a fundamental part of the Heathrow operation, providing the constant flow of traffic that makes it the world’s busiest dual runway airport with 1,350 movements a day.
The tour then takes us around the UK, including the other major airports, the two control centres in Swanwick and Prestwick, some general aviation traffic and examples of military training off the east coast of England and near to North Wales. It then dwells on the spider’s web of helicopter tracks that originate from Aberdeen, taking people and vital supplies to and from the North Sea oil and gas rigs.
“We’ve made data visualisations in the past, but we wanted to now take people on a deeper journey into what makes UK airspace work and some of its important features," said Matt Mills, head of digital communications, NATS. “Airspace might be the invisible infrastructure, but it is every bit as important as the airports and runways on the ground.”
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