Route 4 Update - Horley Overflights

At a former NATMAG meeting, NATS managers reported on their work in relation to resolving the issue of the flights overflying Horley. They agreed that there had been a significant increase since the introduction of the redesigned Route 4 and acknowledged that this was in breach of the Horley overflight rule.

This was the result of vectoring by controllers to allow aircraft to climb quicker whilst at the same providing separation for Heathrow’s Dover departures and Heathrow arrivals through the Biggin stack.

Whilst vectoring has always been used with the original PRNAV design being to the northern edge or outside of the swathe vectored aircraft avoided overflying the town, however, once the route was brought into the centreline of the swathe, and closer to Horley, and using the same headings for vectoring meant that aircraft would overfly Horley.

We have suggested that aircraft should not be vectored until overhead the M23 thereby avoiding Horley but still allowing for vectoring to take place albeit using different headings. NATS have undertaken to have a look at this.

To resolve the issue of overflying Horley has required some additional training of controllers which we understand has started and is ongoing.

The statistics below show the total number of flights that used Route 4 and those which flew through the ‘Horley Gate’ and the percentage.

The number of flights using Route 4 is affected by runway direction in use during each period hence the wide variance.

Sign up to our Email Newsletter

Please enter your details below to receive our newsletter: