Collaborative Decision Making

Airspace Flow Programs

Overview
The FAA introduced a new capability in the spring of 2006 known as the Airspace Flow Program (AFP) that combines the power of Ground Delay Programs (GDPs) and Flow Constrained Areas (FCAs) to allow more efficient, effective, equitable, and predictable management of airborne traffic in congested airspace.

Product Features
Addresses extended capacity reductions in the airspace Combines the power of GDPs and FCAs to allow more efficient management of airborne traffic Improves customer planning Utilizes Flight Schedule Monitor to display demand Management of en route traffic during severe weather

Concept
When TFM specialists at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC), in consultation with FAA field managers and customer representatives, decide that the weather conditions are appropriate they can plan and deploy an AFP. The first step is to use the Traffic Situation Display (TSD) to examine predicted weather and traffic patterns and identify the problem area by creating an FCA. The FCA can be an area of the airspace or a line across traffic flows.

The Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS) takes the FCA description and produces a list of the flights that are expected to pass through the FCA and the time they are expected to enter. This list, updated with fresh information every five minutes, is sent to the Flight Schedule Monitor (FSM), which displays the projected demand in a number of formats designed to support effective planning. The TFM specialists at the ATCSCC can enter the capacity of the FCA, expressed as the number of flights that can be managed per hour, and FSM will then assign each flight a controlled departure time that will provide a smooth managed flow of traffic to the FCA. These departure times are sent to the customers for their planning and to the towers at the departure airports for enforcement.

Benefits
The principal goal for the initial deployment of the AFP program is to better manage en route traffic during severe weather events. Compared to current approaches AFP should address unnecessary delays while providing better control of demand, more equity, and more flexibility for customers. AFPs are the latest step towards an integrated system-wide solution to TFM.

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