Europe's largest £180million air traffic control centre, based at Prestwick, is now fully operational.

The new centre will control nearly half of all UK flights and replaces a 30-year-old facility on the same site. It also takes over from a control centre in Manchester.

The air traffic controllers at Prestwick will monitor civilian and military traffic in the skies above Scotland, the north of England, Northern Ireland and the Atlantic.

The facility was built as part of a plan to reduce the number of control centres in the UK from 4 to 2 and brings to an end 35 years of en route and terminal manoeuvre air traffic control from the centre in Manchester. 

Staff at Manchester handled the final aircraft from the old operations room at 3am on Saturday morning before handing over executive control to their colleagues in Scotland.

Prestwick and Swanick, in Hampshire, are now in charge of the UK's controlled airspace after the closure of the Manchester centre and, three years ago, the centre at West Drayton near Heathrow.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said, “Everyone at NATS does a vital job, keeping our busy skies moving and safe.  This new, state-of-the-art centre forms part of the ongoing modernisation of our air traffic control services, and will help NATS to manage UK aviation in a way which is both greener and more efficient. I wish the staff at Prestwick every success for the future.”

Pauline Lamb, general manager of Prestwick Centre, said, "We started building in 2005, and now here we stand fully operational, in some cases two and a half years ahead of schedule, under budget, on time, working smoothly and the airlines didn't notice it happening.  There is a real sense of achievement for everybody involved."

Air Traffic Controller Iain Brown said, "The old building was a bit darker and a bit more old fashioned, but more as you would expect.   A great deal of scientific effort and investigation has gone into making this the optimum way of working so the lighting is all very carefully calculated and designed for optimum use."

Prestwick Centre will handle more than 900,000 flights per year, covering 2million square kilometres of airspace and has the largest area of responsibility in Europe.

Some 130 staff who worked in Manchester are being relocated to Scotland, boosting Prestwick's workforce to 900.

The facility will be officially opened by HRH the Princess Royal on February 5.