FAA Expands Air Traffic Program to Reduce Summer Delays

More flights were delayed at U.S. airports in the first four months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006, but to reduce the number of storm-related delays in the peak summer period the FAA is expanding the Airspace Flow Program that it introduced successfully last year. If it works, delays at airports such as Chicago O'Hare (seen here) should be reduced. Credit: AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File

As passenger numbers and flight delays in the United States proliferate, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expanding an air traffic program intended to reduce delays during the peak summer season.

The Airspace Flow Program gives airlines the option of either accepting delays for flights scheduled to fly through storms or flying longer routes to safely maneuver around them.

Announcement of the program's expansion this year came as the Air Transport Association, the trade association to which most major US airlines belong, forecast that passengers carried by US airlines in this year's June-August peak period would be up compared with summer 2006.

The ATA forecast that passenger numbers would increase 3 percent to 209 million for the three months. On the same day, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey revealed that the first four months of 2007 were worse for delays than the same period in 2006.

"Last year was a tough one for the flying public," said Blakey. "In 2006, we had almost a half a million delays. Last year, we had more than 126,000 delays from January through April. In the same period this year, we had nearly 142,000 delays."

The FAA launched the Airspace Flow Program last year at seven locations in the northeast United States. On bad weather days at major airports in the region, delays fell by 9 percent compared with the year before. Cost savings for the airlines and the flying public from the program are estimated to be $100 million annually.

In 2006 the FAA implemented a total of 36 airspace flow programs on 19 days from June through August, realizing a 21 percent reduction in delays overall, said Blakey.

"This is a much better way to handle summer traffic," she remarked. "If your flight isn't scheduled to fly through bad weather you don't have to sit on the tarmac. If it is, your airline has the choice of taking a delay shared evenly by all the affected flights or flying around the storm."

Before 2006, severe storms often forced the FAA to ground flights at affected airports, penalizing flights not scheduled to fly through them. But the Airspace Flow Program allows the agency to manage traffic more fairly and efficiently by identifying only those flights scheduled to fly through storms and giving them estimated departure times, said the FAA.

In turn, the airlines have greater flexibility in planning schedules with less disruption for passengers.

This summer the FAA is expanding the number of Airspace Flow Program locations--chosen for their combination of heavy traffic and frequent bad weather--from seven to 18.

The additional locations will ease delays for passengers flying through the South and Midwest, as well as those on transcontinental flights, the FAA said.

"Dynamic" programs will be introduced in other areas to target storms with surgical precision as they develop and move. Airspace Flow Programs will also be used in conditions not related to weather, such as severe congestion near major cities.

Airspace Flow Programs were conceived by the FAA two years ago and developed in close coordination with the airline industry. On bad weather days, agency and airline officials collaborate to decide where and when the programs should be put in place.

In another development, the agency has introduced a new software program that ensures airports impacted by bad weather receive the maximum number of flights that can safely fly to them.

During storms, arrival slots often open up due to delayed or canceled flights. The new software program, called Adaptive Compression and launched in March, automatically fills those slots with the next available flight.

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