NATS reports first significant profits |
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Sat, 02 Jul 2005 17:05
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The National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which directs the air traffic over the UK skies, has reported a bumper profit of £68.8 million for the year ending March. The company which was fiercely castigated for its part-privatization in 2001 managed to report a decent profit despite being affected by a computer system crash last year which left over 200,000 passengers stranded in various places.
NATS had reported a paltry profit of £2 million in 2003. This was against a loss of £80 million, which was reported in the first year after the government elected to sell a 51 percent share to private players in 2001. The company has announced that for the first time it would be able to share a dividend of £5 million with its shareholders, who include those with the government, which continues to hold 49 percent of the company's shares. NATS also announced that its 5,000 strong workforce was also eligible for the share of the profits.
In its annual report that was released yesterday, the company said that the computer failures and the delay in moving its headquarters to at Swanick in Southampton were "brief, but regrettable interruptions." The company said that the service was vastly improved in the last year with delays now reduced to 0.3 minutes per flight. This was as compared to 0.7 minutes last year and 2.2 minutes in 2003. NATS also expressed satisfaction with the way its operations ensured the safety of flights. Chris Gibson-Smith, the chairman of NATS, who is scheduled to bid goodbye to the company, said that he was satisfied with the performance by the company in the last year. He added that the challenge for the next year was to maintain comparable levels of performance in the face of a five percent increase in the traffic, "To have achieved all these things and for the first time since PPP declared a dividend to our shareholders is a credit to everyone who has worked tirelessly to achieve this result," Gibson-Smith enthused.
NATS said that the rise in the profits was attributable to rising traffic with low-cost airlines registering an increase in the routes used. Plus there was considerable recovery in the transatlantic flights which had drastically dipped post-9/11, "Other international flights grew by 4.9 percent, driven by continued growth in the low cost market, a strong response from established carriers and long-haul growth generated by the expanding Asian economy," the annual report said.
The 51 percent of the shares are distributed among British Airways, Easyjet, BMI, MyTravel, Airtours, Virgin Atlantic, Brittannia and Monarch, who own 42 per cent. The airports’ operator, BAA holds 4 percent while the staff own the rest 5 percent of the shares. As mentioned above, the government holds the remaining 49 percent.
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