Flights increase despite disruption

Despite two separate incidents which disrupted flights last month, the UK’s September air traffic still increased on the same month last year, up by 0.5%.

NATS, the UK’s major air traffic services provider, safely handled 237,506 flights compared with 236,403 in September 2025. Traffic decreased month on month from August by 5.2%.

Eurocontrol figures show that NATS handled 23.1% of Europe’s traffic during the month and, with the disruption caused by the two incidents, NATS accounted for 4.9% of overall European delay.

In August, NATS handled 250,635 flights. This was an increase of 1.7% on August last year while showing a slight month on month decrease of 1.1% from July. Eurocontrol figures show that NATS handled 23.2% of Europe’s traffic in August but was accountable for only 2.2% of Europe’s overall delay.

Unsurprisingly, European holiday hotspots showed most growth with Spain up by 9% year on year, Portugal by 7% and Greece by 5%. The market with least growth was transatlantic arrivals and departures, which decreased by 2%.