It’s time for a quick ‘Happy New (AIRAC) Year’ from the Operations Department. I hope the festive period has allowed you some time to rest and recharge for 2022.

It’s a privilege to take over this department from Jack, who’s led it since October 2020. We are going into 2022 with a strong and established team, which we’ll need to achieve all our plans and hit our deadlines for 2022. Thank you @Jack Edwardsfor all your efforts to bring the team to where it is, along with your personal contributions such as the Shanwick Oceanic Procedures.

2021 has been a challenging year for the network, with activity levels fluctuating each quarter. We’ve certainly seen an increase of traffic since Christmas, which I’m hopeful will continue to grow in the New Year. As always, Heathrow and Gatwick still feature in the top 3 of all airports by traffic movement, with Gatwick and Manchester remaining some of the best staffed positions on the network.

Sector File

34 people have contributed data to our sector file this year, contributing 123,742 line additions over 271 commits. We’d like to thank everyone that has contributed work to the project, no matter how big or small the changes! Well done to @Luke Brown and @Thomas Mills for keeping on top of this mountain of updates and pushing them out to us so regularly.

For those that want to get involved, it’s now easier than ever to update the sector file – just take a look at our Contributor guide.

Documents and Procedures

Our coordinators and contributors have released copies of 12 aerodrome vMATS and 9 ACBs. This includes major revisions or brand new documentation for so many airports in the division that we didn’t have before. While there is always more to do, 2021 has seen a boom in aerodrome/approach documentation. Well done @Chad Byworth for your hard work and welcome @Ellis Delgado as the newest team member to the mountain of work ahead!

At the Area level, we have also released a long-awaited update of our Shanwick Oceanic procedures that hadn’t seen a revision since 2013. This, combined with our regularly updated London and Scottish vMATS and LoAs for all our domestic boundaries undoubtedly brings our area documentation to the best place it’s ever been. Thank you @Harry Sugden for your expertise and efforts in leading us here.

Happy 22** AIRAC Year from the Ops Team