Published: Wednesday, 27th January, 2010 12:30pm

£180million Prestwick Centre Opens

by Roisin McGroarty

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Air traffic control premises goes operational

A BRAND new £180million air traffic control centre in Prestwick has finally opened.

The centre, which came in on time and under budget, includes controllers managing Oceanic airspace, Scottish airspace and military airspace who previously worked from former operations headquarters nearby.

An extra 130 air traffic controllers and support staff have moved from Manchester to Prestwick as two centres merged, ending 35 years of en route manoeuvre air traffic control from the English centre.

Staff handled the final aircraft from the old operations room in Manchester during the early hours of Saturday morning and handed over executive control to their colleagues in Ayr.

NATS chief executive Paul Barron said: "Many people have worked very hard over the course of this project to ensure everything is delivered on time, under budget and with minimum disruption to the service we provide to the airlines."

See this week's paper for full story.