Fewer flights as the credit crunch bites

The number of annual flights handled by air traffic controllers dipped last year for the first time since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, it was announced today.

Air traffic control company Nats dealt with 2,433,946 flights in 2008 - a 1.5% drop on the 2007 figure.

Most of the decline was in the last part of last year, with the number of December flights handled falling 8% compared with December 2007.

The last time there was an annual reduction in the number of flights handled by Nats was in 2002 following the terrorist outrages in the US on September 11 2001.

Nats operations director Ian Hall said: "This is a very slight year-on-year decline. We were very busy at the start of 2008 and most of the decrease has been in the last three months. This needs to be looked at in the light of continuous growth since the year-long downturn following 9/11.

"To put it into context, we handled 560,000 more flights last year than we did 10 years ago and traffic in 2008 was still higher than 2006. The winter period generally sees lower traffic levels and we have been expecting an even quieter winter this year."