UK approves loan to bolster part-privatised NATS

The UK government has approved a £60 million ($86 million) loan to National Air Traffic Services (NATS), to help it survive falling traffic and revenues for six months.

Half will come from the government, and half from the consortium of banks - Abbey National, Bank of America, Barclays Capital and HBOS - that provided over £1.4 billion in backing to the Airline Group, which bought 46% of NATS from the government in a part-privatisation last year.

NATS hopes to be able to cut costs by £200 million and raise its capped fees by 5% in order to reduce its losses.

Source: Flight International