NATS, Britain’s air navigation service provider, has refuted Ryanair’s claims that air traffic control operations at London Heathrow and Gatwick are favored over Stansted Airport.

The budget airline, which has its largest base globally at London Stansted, claimed that Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) figures “confirm” that NATS gave Heathrow “special treatment” and that Gatwick “is also being preferred”.

The Irish airline lodged a complaint to the European Commission and UK Civil Aviation Authority. The carrier said delay figures for the first quarter of the year show that Stansted had suffered 52% of all ATC delays caused by NATS in the London area.

The 52% figure when compared to busy hubs like Heathrow, which suffered 0% of the delays and Gatwick, which experienced only 10% of the delays, shows a big disparity.

Ryanair’s COO, Peter Bellew said, “Ryanair and Stansted are clearly being discriminated against by the UK airline owned ATC provider NATS.

“The CAA Oberon report confirmed that Stansted suffered 15,268 (52 per cent) delay minutes of NATS attributable ATC delays in Q1, while Heathrow suffered none, zero, nada.”

“These disruptions are unfair and unacceptable, and we call on the UK Dept of Transport and the EU Commission to take urgent action to ensure that the UK ATC provider (NATS) is fully staffed and treats each London airport fairly.

“The situation is particularly bad at weekends where NATS are hiding behind adverse weather and euphemisms such as “capacity restrictions” when the truth is they are not rostering enough ATC staff to cater for the number of flights that are scheduled to operate.”

NATS has however refuted the claims saying it does not discriminate against airlines or airports.

Speaking to Express.co.uk, a NATS spokesperson said, “Ryanair performance this summer cannot be blamed on UK air traffic control. The figures Ryanair quote from the beginning of the year coincide with the introduction of new technology that affected the number of flights in and out of Stansted during that period.

“Luton airport was similarly affected at that time and other airports were affected at other times over a seven month period. All airlines and airports were notified of the timetable in advance and understood the new technology will help us increase capacity safely in the future. Ryanair made similar accusations against NATS in summer 2016. These were thoroughly investigated by the CAA.”

By Airport Pickups London