Journal of Air Transport Management 6 (2000) 1}2
Opinion
The FAA national air tra$c management evaluation
George L. Donohue*
MS 4A6, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444, USA
At the request of the Air Transport Association (ATA),
the US Federal Aviation Administration conducted an
internal audit of 34 air tra$c control facilities in the late
summer of 1999. The audit was requested due to con-
cerns that there was a systemic increase in delays over
previous years. Eighty-eight evaluators, including 34 rep-
resenting ATA, conducted the audit of facilities primarily
in the eastern and central US covering an area roughly
equal to the size and air tra$c complexity of Europe.
Although the report is di$cult to read, it provides an
important insight into the state of the US air tra$c
control operating system.
At the outset, it should be noted that the FAA air
tra$c control system operates a system of roughly twice
the capacity and equal complexity of the European sys-
tem at a comparable safety level. The subsequent report
did not focus on what the FAA is doing right but on
areas that need improving. Nevertheless, the picture
painted should be of concern to policy makers and air
transportation operators in the US.
The report represents the FAA as a collection of feudal
"efdoms with a central #ow control and center-to-center
coordination problem not much di!erent from interna-
tional airspace coordination problems found in the rest
of the world. It describes a ground-to-ground inter- and
intra-o$ce communication system unchanged from the
1950s with little use of common o$ce utilities that are
taken for granted today (i.e., e-mail and local area digital
communication nets). Although some centers seem to be
doing relatively well (e.g., Atlanta and Charlotte), most
are not, with New York being perhaps the worst. A con-
sistent theme of the evaluation teams was one of a lack of
system thinking and training by air tra$c controllers and
* George L. Donohue is Federal Aviation Administration Visiting
Professor of Air Transportation Technology and Policy in the School
of Information Technology and Engineering and in the Institute for
Public Policy. He was FAA Associate Administrator for Research,
Engineering and Acquisition from 1994 to 1998. Views expressed are
his alone and do not represent the FAA or George Mason University.
Tel.: #1-703-993-3359; fax: #1-703-9931-521..
0969-6997/00/$ - see front matter ( 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 6 9 - 6 9 9 7 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 2 9 - 0
managers alike. It has been over 15 years since the
concept of central #ow control and ground delay pro-
grams have been introduced in the US and the underly-
ing principles and procedures have either not been
provided in training or have not been accepted by the
centers.
Certainly, one of the principle underlying causes of
delay in the US is convective weather. One of the primary
functions of central #ow control is strategic reallocation
of airspace capacity when convective weather activity
begins a!ecting one or more of the approximately 60
main hub airports. Ground delay programs and miles-
in-trail restrictions are used to work these weather prob-
lems. Unfortunately, both of these tools severely reduce
the total system capacity. This was much less of a prob-
lem in the mid to late 1980s when the techniques were
developed, but the demand for air transportation has
increased so much that the techniques may be creating as
much delay today as they are trying to avoid. Frequently,
airport towers, terminal radar control facilities and
centers do not understand the nature, and duration of
centrally communicated ground delay programs , leading
to distrust of the quality of information that exists at
central #ow control. In addition, miles-in-trail restric-
tions are put in place throughout the system by many
di!erent control entities. These restrictions are imple-
mented to temporarily reduce system capacity to accom-
modate local workload problems. Unfortunately, many
of these dynamic restrictions tend to become permanent
static restrictions. The accumulation of these unjusti"ed
restrictions has a severe impact on reducing the total
National Airspace System capacity, thus producing addi-
tional delay.
Two airport capacity problems were also noted. The
"rst is the increasing use of regional jets by many air
carriers. These jets carry few passengers but o!er in-
creased frequency and #exibility to the hub and spoke
system. Unfortunately, they use up one or more runway
capacity slots at hub airports due to wake vortex separ-
ation criteria, thus decreasing total enplanement capa-
city. Second, is the increasing refusal of airline pilots to
2 G.L. Donohue / Journal of Air Transport Management 6 (2000) 1}2
accept land and hold short restrictions, thus decreasing
airport landing capacity at airports with poorly designed
runway geometry. This is an increasing safety concern
and is related to the growing number of runway incur-
sion incidents that have been reported by the FAA as the
US is approaching its capacity limit in some parts of the
country.
Finally, it was noted that private business aircraft and
general aviation aircraft are being given priority in the
centralized #ow control ground delay program. This may
partially explain the large growth in private companies
using private aircraft instead of commercial airlines. It
also points to the larger problem of believing that more
centralized decision-making will improve these prob-
lems. Many large operational organizations believe that
centralized policy with decentralized execution is a more
e$cient means of control under rapidly changing condi-
tions associated with dynamic systems.