NATS

Overview

Customer: NATS Industry: Aviation – Air Traffic Control

Challenge: Sustain long-established but mission-critical hardware while NATS transitions to a new air traffic control system, with no tolerance for operational disruption. 

Solution: A dedicated onsite CDW team providing multi-platform hardware repair across seven machine rooms on two sites, from mainframes to bespoke ATC equipment.

Impact: 1,700+ hardware calls resolved each year since 2014, no hardware-caused operational incident to date, and a five-year extension secured to 2030 and beyond.

Introduction

NATS is the UK's leading provider of air traffic control services,handling around 2.5 million flights and some 300 million passengers a year over the UK and the North Atlantic. It manages all UK upper airspace from two control centres — Swanwick in Hampshire and Prestwick in Ayrshire — and provides air traffic services at 15 UK airports, with around 4,900 employees including 1,800 controllers and 1,000 engineers. Its stated purpose is “advancing aviation, keeping the skies safe”. (Source: nats.aero)

The challenge

UK airspace is divided into three Flight Information Regions— London, Scottish and Shanwick Oceanic, the last covering some 700,000 square miles of the North East Atlantic — and system availability across them is non-negotiable. Much of the supporting hardware is long-established and must remain fully serviceable while NATS transitions to its next-generation air traffic control system. CDW became NATS' preferred hardware support supplier in 2014, taking over from IBM, the decades-long incumbent and the original manufacturer of much of the installed equipment. CDW delivers this support on behalf of Leidos, which now holds the contract following its acquisition of the Lockheed Martin business that previously held it.