As 7,000 aviation professionals touched down in Lisbon for Airspace World 2026, the conference centre's Boeing Theatre prepared to host the event’s esteemed awards ceremony.
There were some predictable big-name contenders on the shortlist. US space agency NASA was one. European civil-military organisation EUROCONTROL was another.
But between the agency responsible for putting man on the moon, and the organisation leading air operations during times of crisis, there was also another contender on this list: A little consultancy that operates from a property on North Street in Maryport.
That name was Straten Consulting Services Ltd (CSL): A company whose ambitious ideas for air travel has helped to rank West Cumbria right alongside the industry’s top guns and put the region on the radar for global aviation services.
Straten CSL first took flight in 2021, and has since built a stellar reputation in air navigation services, airspace design, aviation safeguarding, and radar impact assessment – winning the Best Global Specialist Aviation Consultancy award in both 2023 and 2024.
It might be a smaller fish in a big pond, operating from a remote base in an unusual part of the world for an aviation consultancy, but Straten CSL has pedigree behind the scenes. The man at the wheel of the business has more than three decades of experience – and a huge range of new ideas about how modern aviation ought to work.
‘Oh yeah, I’ve been working in this industry for about a week or two,’ founder John Van Hoogstraten jokes, recalling a career in air traffic control that began in South Africa back in the 1980s.
‘I spent 13 years in my home country working as a controller before moving to the Middle East, and eventually the United Kingdom in 2016, where I joined an aviation consultancy in Thirsk in North Yorkshire.
‘I decided to go it alone five years ago, and with my two sons working at Sellafield, I moved the company to Maryport so I could be close to them.’
Straten CSL is now one of the few aviation consultancies working out of Cumbria – and it is pushing a type of technology that Van Hoogstraten says could change a mammoth issue for the industry: Congestion and delays.
‘Air traffic control has lost its purpose,’ he tells us.
‘It has shifted from managing airspace to managing airlines, which wasn’t what it was set up to do.
‘Now, no system exists to empower airlines to predict disruptions, negotiate slot and trajectory options, and collaborate with air traffic and airport systems.’
Straten CSL has produced a white paper which put forward the concept of the Airline Flight Optimisation System (AFOS) – a category of technology designed to connect airline operations for greater efficiency.
The concept behind AFOS is simple: Instead of aircrafts flying at full speed and then being delayed on arrival, they absorb small delays during cruise through minor speed adjustments – just one or two knots.
‘The best analogy is a football match,’ Van Hoogstraten explains.
‘Imagine being told exactly when to leave home, pass each traffic light, park, and enter the stadium with no queues. That’s the idea – eliminating congestion by managing flow earlier.’
The concept came to life after Van Hoogstraten met a fellow South African who was a chief training pilot with Emirates, a Boeing 777 captain, and previously a fighter jet pilot.
‘He had noticed that every time he arrived at high-capacity airports – Dubai, Heathrow, Singapore, New York, Los Angeles – he would end up in a holding pattern,’ Van Hoogstraten says.
‘He questioned why this kept happening.
‘At the same time, I was head of operations for an airspace centre in the UAE, and we had the same problem: Aircraft entering our airspace and all holding.
‘In the airline industry, there’s nothing linking airlines into that system. You only have to go to Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, or Schiphol to see the capacity problem – only one aircraft can land on a runway at any given time.
‘We knew there had to be a better way to stagger arrivals earlier.’
Van Hoogstraten says that his solution – dubbed AFOS and ‘SmartSlot’ – is already showing evidence that it can provide a real solution to an increasing problem.
‘The results have been phenomenal,’ he says.
‘We’ve done flight trials with Aer Lingus, 110 flights between Dublin and Gatwick, and another 550 flights in Japan.
‘In the Dublin-Gatwick trials, we saved an average of eight minutes per flight. At roughly €100 per minute in fuel, that’s €800 per flight on a one-hour leg.
‘Multiply that across daily flights and a full year, and the savings are significant – not just financially but environmentally.’
The concept of slowing speed mid-air means flights will be touching down in a different way, but according to Van Hoogstraten, this will support the industry to push back on what he considers to be a farce: Airlines celebrating getting flights in ‘on time’.
‘On-time performance is one of the biggest cons,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘Airlines simply extend scheduled flight times to improve their metrics.
‘A flight that used to be scheduled at an hour and ten minutes a few years ago might now be an hour and a half, even though actual flying time hasn’t changed.
‘It’s a con. As a passenger, you're not really interested on getting airborne on time, but you are interested in arriving on time.’
Van Hoogstraten says this is one example of change required in aviation, with the industry needing to ‘move away from traditional thinking’ as busier airspace becomes increasingly clogged.
‘Air travel demand continues to grow,’ he says.
‘Some projects I’m involved in include airport expansion planning in places like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria. India is looking at adding around 100 airports over the next 10–15 years. Europe is more constrained due to environmental and planning issues, but demand is still rising.
‘Technology is also advancing rapidly – satellite navigation, surveillance, and communications are improving efficiency. But that also means aircraft can arrive more quickly, which worsens congestion if not managed properly.’
Van Hoogstraten has already published one book on the challenges – and proposed solutions – across aviation technology, and is currently writing a second around the future of air traffic control.
‘It’s quite an interesting topic,’ he says.
‘I also tie in my own experiences over the years, especially from when I started as an air traffic controller with a pen, a piece of paper, and a microphone. Today, you’re sitting with an advanced computer where you click on the screen and things happen. It’s all quite interesting.’
When it came time to announce the winners at Airspace World 2026 for the Seamless Skies Awards, Van Hoogstraten had his fingers crossed. But in the end, Straten CSL was beaten to the trophy by NASA, with DFS named as runners up.
‘In the absence of announcing third place we have unofficially claimed it,’ he jokes.
No prize this time. But if aviation continues to consider these bold ideas coming out of West Cumbria, there might be some more ‘official’ awards for Straten CSL coming down the runway just yet…
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