Nats boss ousted with payout

THE MAN who piloted National Air Traffic Services (Nats) through its rocky part-privatisation and subsequent financial crisis has been dropped by the loss-making company.

Nats said today that Richard Everitt, its chief executive since the Government sold 51% of the business in the summer of 2001, will leave the board with a one-year pay-off of about £400,000. He will be replaced by Paul Barron, currently UK head of Alstom.

Barron has effectively restructured himself out of a job after the giant French engineer's withdrawal from British manufacturing with the controversial closure of its Birmingham train building business and the sale of its gas turbines operations.

A Nats spokesman said of the surprise decision to oust Everitt: 'The board felt it needed a new man with a different set of skills. Paul Barron is a strong handson people manager.'

Everitt, 55, survived a torrid time in which Nats was dubbed 'the Railtrack of the skies' after losing £110m in two years, was rescued by a Government/BAA bailout and suffered repeated flight delays during the bedding in of its new control centre in Hampshire. Barron, 53, is being brought in to expand Nats operations.

Though he will have to oversee a £1b technology modernisation programme, Barron's role will be to place Nats at the heart of the shake-up of air traffic control around Europe. 'There are opportunities to expand around the world,' said the spokesman.

After a collapse in revenues following the 9.11 attacks on the US, Nats has posted record levels of activity recently.