The low-cost-carrier Ryanair claimed on Monday that it was being discriminated against by the UK's Air Traffic Control Service NATS.
The airline says that recent figures published by the CAA prove that the airline and London Stanstead Airport are facing discrimination by NATS. The low-fare-high-fee airline claims that failure of NATS to fairly supply ATC staffing and airspace resources at Stansted Airport has wreaked havoc this summer on both Ryanair and London Stansted flight schedules.
The CAA's Oberon report detailed that Stansted suffered 15,268 (52%) delay minutes of NATS attributable ATC delays during the first quarter of this year. Gatwick's delays attributed to ATC was 10% and the UK's largest and busiest airport Heathrow seems to have operated with no delays due to ATC issues.
Ryanair’s COO, Peter Bellew whinged, “Ryanair and Stansted are clearly being discriminated against by the UK airline owned ATC provider NATS. Ryanair is today submitting a formal complaint to the European Commission and the UK CAA over this blatant discrimination against Stansted Airport and Ryanair."
NATS is the UK's leading provider of air traffic control services. Each year it handles more than 2.4 million flights and over 250 million passengers in UK airspace.
