North America to (slowly) update Air Traffic Control

by Grant Martin on

The long and hard fought battle for landing slots rages on in New York and London, where airlines like Virgin Atlantic and British Airways squabble over who gets how many slots and when they’re allowed to leave and depart from their airports.

Landing and departure slots are tightly controlled at these airports, and the already high volume at New York is the cause of over 70% of delays in the United States. So it’s obviously a sore topic with consumers, politicians and carriers. Passengers and airlines want more departures, but the current infrastructure can’t handle it, resulting in the delays.

To exacerbate the problem, earlier this year, congress pushed through legislation capping the maximum number of departures from the New York airports, effectively requiring any airline that wanted extra permission to leave during peak periods to pay extra. Naturally, the airlines are up in arms, saying that they’re just reacting to passenger demand.

How does one thus fix the volume problem? Airlines and analysts alike agree that the solution is in a better air traffic control system. The current technology used only allows for simple control of surrounding aircraft — but advancing this technology would allow for better stacking and management of traffic. Problem is, all of the aircraft in the skies currently work on the antiquated system — so you can’t just switch everything over.

Slowly, however, we’re starting to make progress, starting with the lower volume system in Canada. Next year, small sections of the country will implement a new system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B, and if that’s successful the model will spread all over North America.

Don’t plan on the volume increasing at JFK any time soon though. With all of the equipment in the skies and in airports across the US, some predict that it could take another decade before everything is up to snuff.

Government Accountability Office Says Runway Accidents Still a Big Risk

by Josh Lew on

Earlier this year, the National Transportation Safety Bureau scolded the FAA for not doing more to decrease the chances of runway collisions. According to the NTSB, runway accidents are the greatest danger facing air travelers. Near misses are almost commonplace. Just last week in Pennsylvania, a United Express jet and a 4-seat Cessna barely missed each other because of an error by an air traffic controller trainee.

This week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) chimed in on the subject of runway dangers, reporting that though the number of flights dropped over the past year, the number of runway incidents (actual accidents or near misses) was slightly higher during the first three quarters of 2008 than it was in 2007. Nonetheless, a top GAO aviation expert told a House committee that it appeared that the FAA was increasingly intent on making runways safer.
With all the chatter about airport security measures, security checkpoints and the use of cell phones on planes, the chaotic runways of airports almost go unnoticed. Though, if you crunched the numbers, the chances of getting hit by another plane while taxiing down a runway are much, much higher than the chances of a plane being hijacked.

Air Traffic Control in crisis: Federal Aviation Administration recruitment looks to high schools to fill jobs

by Jeffrey White on

Confronted with an exodus of veteran air traffic controllers who are hitting retirement age, the Federal Aviation Administration is busy recruiting — at, among other places, high schools.

The FAA is busy wooing recent high school grads to come right on board, so to speak, and begin training to be controllers. They’ll go through three months of training before becoming “controllers in training.” Not long after that, they’ll be staff.

The New York Post broke the story today.

The FAA has just completed a recruitment drive that placed ads on Craig’s List, Myspace and at high schools nationwide. The feds were offering more than $100,000 in signing bonuses to newbies to draw them to the New York area’s five understaffed radar centers, says the Post.

There’s a one-time $27,000 bonus at the start of training, with another $75,000 paid out over four years.

So far, the Post says, one recent hire is a 20-year-old man who is currently monitoring radars at a station in Westbury, LI. He happens to have majored in air traffic control, but the FAA says students who have completed the 12th grade are eligible.

This news comes after two recent near-misses above the skies of New York that are being attributed to understaffed radar stations.

On July 5, two passenger jets inbound to JFK came within 100 feet of colliding in mid air, which the FAA considers to be an extremely close call. On June 25, a Learjet was given the green light to land at Teterboro Airport on a runway on which maintenance employees were busy working.

By 2011, nearly 60 percent of all air traffic controllers nationwide will have less than five years experience on the job, the Post says.

I don’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, the FAA has to get new people in there to bring staffing numbers up to a safe level. Then again, how safe do we feel knowing the FAA is searching out applicants for this life-or-death job on Myspace?

Plane Answers: How close are airliners allowed to fly?

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

This question was submitted by Jim,

Hi Kent,

My question concerns how much advance notice pilots get when there are other planes in their immediate air space. In some of my travels, while at cruising altitude, I’ve seen other planes cross paths just below us. Knowing how many planes fill the sky each day and knowing that your reaction time is minimal, I wonder how pilots and controllers work together to keep all those planes apart. Also, what’s the rule on how much distance must there be between planes when on the same route and at intersection points?Thanks Jim,

I know it can be a little disconcerting to see another airplane cross under or zip by overhead just as you look out the window of an airliner.

Air traffic controllers have rules on how far laterally they must keep airplanes apart as well as how much vertical space needs to be kept between them.

For lateral separation, airplanes that are en route–flying faster and further away from the ATC facility–must have at least 5 nautical miles between them. When the airplanes enter the approach controller’s airspace, that requirement goes down to 3 nautical miles. Finally, when the airplane is in the control of an airport’s tower controller, aircraft can be spaced much closer if that controller has visual contact with the airplanes or if at least one pilot reports they have the other aircraft in sight. A good example of this is the visual approaches to San Francisco where airplanes are lined up on final approach for the parallel runways. You would think the airplanes are flying in formation at times.

This visual separation doesn’t apply when airplanes are in the clouds, in which case the controllers keep airplanes spaced about 2 1/2 NM apart, more if the preceding aircraft is a heavy (over 250,000 pounds–757 or larger) and the following aircraft is not. This limitation is a function of the wake turbulence generated by larger airplanes.

But I suspect the airplanes that you’ve been seeing lately have been even closer laterally than that. Because of some technology improvements to corporate jets and airliners, most of the world has adopted the Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) standards. This allows aircraft flying above 29,000 feet to be spaced at 1,000 foot intervals. In the past, that number was 2,000 feet apart.

This has actually had the effect of doubling our airspace above 29,000 feet, which allows for more direct routing and the ability for us to get out of annoying areas of turbulence.

Westbound aircraft are normally put at the even flight levels (altitudes) and eastbound aircraft fly at the odd levels. That doesn’t apply to the North Atlantic, where most of the traffic flies westbound in the morning and eastbound in the afternoon. In that case, airplanes are spaced 1000 feet apart which makes for some great views from our seat as you can see from the following video clip:


Have a question for Kent? Ask away and he’ll pick one to answer here on Friday.

Military airspace opened for holiday travel

by Grant Martin on

If you’re one of the 27 million people flying over the next week, your flight may not be as miserable as you were planning for. Last week, the Bush administration authorized the partial use of military airspace along the eastern seaboard. This mean less congestion (in the skies at least) and better integration with Air Traffic Control across some of the nation’s busiest airports.

That doesn’t mean that you’ll be limited by runway time, landing slots or weather though, so don’t get your hopes up too high. This step is just one of many that are needed to ease the problems with the antiquated air traffic control and greedy corporate airline networks, as we wrote about earlier.

This week is one of the toughest out of the year to travel. Tensions run high as crowds surge through crowded airport lines and security screenings then cram into tiny aluminum jets. This Wednesday I fly from Toledo – Detroit – Amsterdam – Barcelona, so take it from a seasoned traveler: have a scotch before you leave, pack light and be patient and you’ll have a great trip. See you on the road.