NATS Bournemouth Airport staff could face move in 2007
05.10.06
Hundred of jobs are up in the air at Bournemouth Airport after staff at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) facilities there, including the training college and research centre, were told they could be moving as early as next year, the Dorset Echo reports.
In a memo to staff, NATS managers said the move to new centres - not disclosed but believed to include the company's headquarters at Fareham and other bases at Manchester and Prestwick airports - was due to be completed by 2009 and would 'affect all staff and functions based at Hurn'.
But plans to set up a new training centre for excellence by the end of 2007 could see some of the 450 Hurn-based staff moving next year to work at the new site, likely to be located at the NATS corporate and technical centre at Whiteley, close to the Swanwick national air traffic control centre.
NATS senior press officer Donna Casey stressed no final decisions had been made for the relocation of the college, which trains personnel for air traffic control services at home and abroad, including those provided by NATS at 15 major UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Southampton.
The company, which was partially privatised five years ago, also operates en-route air traffic control for aircraft flying through UK and North Atlantic airspace and last year handled some two million planes carrying 220 million passengers.
Future in-flight air traffic control will be provided from centres at Swanwick in Hampshire and Prestwick in Scotland, where a new centre is being developed, leaving vacant premises at existing NATS bases at West Drayton in Middlesex, Prestwick and Manchester airport.
To book a bournemouth airport hotels or bournemouth airport parking at the lowest price click on these links to airport parking and airport hotel price comparison websites.
