Nats renews system management contract

Nats hopes to improve its air traffic control system

Air traffic control authority Nats has signed a five-year licensing deal with systems integrator Lockheed Martin to provide maintenance and support of its core software.

The £80m contract is an extension of the firms' 30-year relationship, which involves the support of Nats’ London Area Control (LAC) operation at its air traffic control centre in Swanwick.

Under the new agreement, Lockheed Martin will also continue to provide domain experts across all aspects of engineering and programme management including systems architects as well as software, systems and test engineers.

“This new agreement will ensure that the LAC system at Swanwick continues to out-perform all expectations and will allow our controllers to be ready to cope with the increasing demands that will be associated with rising levels of air traffic projected in the future,” said Nats’ senior programme manager Allan Robb.

“It is the second follow-on contract for this programme. Selecting this team again is a clear demonstration of the strength of our partnership to deliver on time and within budget the most advanced air traffic control solutions,” he said.

The contract runs to 2013 with options that could potentially extend it to 2018.