Many of us in aviation watched in awe as the Eyjafjallajokull volcano on Iceland began erupting in earnest on April 14 and began disrupting air traffic all over Europe. According to Oxford Economics, that first week of disruption caused an estimated impact of $4.7B, not just limited to Europe, but extending to North America, Asia and other parts of the world. We realized the potential contributions that Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) could make and began prototyping specialized tools for use in this situation. But, more on that some other time. Read the rest of this entry»

Last week I had the good fortune to attend the Aviation Week “NextGen  Ahead 2010″ program in Washington, DC.  I think it was my good fortune because for what felt like the first time, there was a buzz around the place, not just for all things NextGen, and how progress is being made, and how it portends so very positively for the industry going forward, but I actually heard many of the speakers focus on an element that has been largely absent from NextGen dialogue, as well as planning, and participation in work groups that I’ve been among.  If you haven’t guessed by now, the missing element has been the controllers.  With the long hard days of contract negotiation behind us, I see an opportunity to garner the expertise if not support from the very men and women who will be the center of “NextGen Ahead”, clearly without their valuable input we don’t stand much chance of reaching the rather lofty goals often described by many anticipating NextGen’s bounty.   From my perspective, the newer members of FAA’s Air Traffic Control ranks will be the ones who will transition from today’s legacy systems into what will be a whole new ball game.  It’s that whole new ball game the industry is focused upon. Read the rest of this entry»

The time has come for “all hands on deck.” FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt and Air Traffic Organization chief Hank Krakowski testified on March 18 before the House Appropriations Subcommittee. They were defending the agency’s FY 2011 budget request. They were asking for $1.14B for NextGen in FY 2011. That’s 32 percent more than received in FY 2010. That’s in a climate of record deficits due to two wars, financial bail-outs, cash for clunkers, and heath care, all piled on top of the pre-existing entitlements. While Randy Babbitt and Hank Krakowski seemed to say the right things, they weren’t able to calm the waters completely. Subcommittee Chair John Oliver, according to NextGov, seemed to have doubts. He said “It’s hard to see what the cumulative result of [NextGen] is yet because it is so complex and comprehensive….”  No question, it is big and complex. Even when you work on it from the inside, it’s hard to get your arms around it. Think about how difficult it must be for the folks on the Hill, much less the folks on the street, who by the way vote for the folks on the Hill. As a result, the folks on the Hill often pay more attention to the folks on the street than the folks who testify. It’s the way our system was designed. Read the rest of this entry»

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In response to a recent question about NextGen benefits, I decided to devote this blog entry to that topic. The question came from Bud Bensel, who said he had developed the initial SOIA procedures and PRM operations. I presume this must have been for SFO or STL. Bensel felt that NextGen benefits were elusive. He wanted to know where I felt “definitive, quantifiable and verifiable improvements in capacity and flight operational efficiencies” would be realized in NextGen. Read the rest of this entry»

As the year winds down and I begin taking stock, a couple of things come to mind. Here we are standing on the verge of NextGen moving to the next level. We’ve begun fast convergence as a community this year, rallying behind NextGen. I have a button from the National Alliance to Advance NextGen – NextGen Now! It had its start in the airports community. RTCA Task Force 5 produced its recommendations for NextGen mid-term priorities. It was driven by the NAS user community. The FAA has said it will embrace these recommendations and is in the process of awarding a family of major NextGen contracts to undertake the largest investment in FAA history. The aviation industry is sending letters of NextGen support to the Congress that carry signatures of the CEOs of many airlines and aviation industry leaders. Yes, there are competing interests and potential obstacles, but the planets seem to have aligned to support NextGen. Read the rest of this entry»

I recently had the opportunity to spend several days at the USTDA’s U.S.-India Aviation Summit.  The program was alive with both timely and interesting panels.  We had many speakers from FAA including Administrator Randy Babbit, Peggy Gilligan, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, Di Reimhold Acting Administrator for International Aviation, Kate Lang, Associate Administrator for Airports, Nancy Kalinowski, Vice President, System Operations, and Carey Fagan, Director Strategy and Performance International Office.  Each of these folks delivered serious and valuable messages during their sessions.  I was taken by the breadth of FAA involvement, and their ability to address the myriad issues facing the service provider in India, as they try to build their infrastructure.  The Indian Government has a large interest in understanding what the FAA has done and what goes on here in the U.S.

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Recently I was able to both observe and participate in a skull session surrounding the upcoming closure of runway 31L at JFK.  The group of attendees was large, in the range of 30 people.  They represented many of the major airline operators, the airport operator and several FAA facilities.  I think after all of the briefings were accomplished, everyone had clarity on the anticipated impact of losing a runway for as many as four months at a time, beginning in March 2010.  I was struck by the desire to find common ground in developing plans to mitigate the expected loss.  The group went from best circumstances where there would be very little in the way of operational impact, to the “Murphy’s Law” scenario where the airport would be relegated single runway status, for a relatively long period of time.  The effect of such an occurrence, depending on the time of day and longevity would be enormous in terms of cancellations and diversions.  Read the rest of this entry»

There is an increasing interest in expanding horizons related to all manner of things associated with airport surface operations. We in the industry, as well as the traveling public, are witness to perturbations associated with inefficiencies on many of our nation’s airports. We’re not alone, the same circumstances leading to system inefficiencies, wasteful emissions, fuel burn, gate and ramp control, plague major airports world wide– much of it due to a lack of connectivity among surface providers. In Europe they began some time ago trying to find ways to better orchestrate airport operations and dubbed the effort CDM. It’s clearly a “kissin cousin” to our CDM but where we focused mainly in the air, our neighbors did it on the surface. I believe there are lessons, we can learn from our European counterparts, and lessons we can share with them too. Read the rest of this entry»

NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force, better known as RTCA Task Force 5, completed its work and delivered its final report to the FAA on September 9. On September 15, RTCA put on an all-day conference at a local hotel in Washington, DC to discuss the TF5 recommendations.

In a nutshell, the TF5 recommendations identify five specific problem areas in the system and two cross-cutting areas that are in greatest need of attention. The five specific areas are: surface, runway access, metroplexes, cruise efficiency and access to the NAS. The two cross-cutting areas are data communications and integration of ATM services. If you want information on the TF5 recommendations, the best place to go is the RTCA website (www.rtca.org). I found it amusing that several people I talked to at the meeting complained about how, after listening to the speakers all day long, still had no inkling of what was in the report. If they came to the conference hoping to avoid reading the report, they left disappointed. Had they read the report, the discussions at the conference pretty clearly marked the path forward. Read the rest of this entry»