Airspace Capacity Challenges

For this assignment, conduct research and consider airspace capacity challenges currently facing the aviation industry. You will select one specific topic that is leading to an airspace capacity challenge to address in your paper (e.g. unmanned systems operations, an increase in commercial air traffic, etc.).

Your paper must include:

The impact of capacity on the current structure of the national airspace
An evaluation of the FAA’s National Airspace Systems Plan on current air traffic control systems
An assessment of the impact of equipment capacity on national airspace system availability
A proposed recommendation to increase the capacity of the national airspace
Your paper must be 2-3 pages in length, supported by a minimum of three scholarly references, should be grammatically sound, and free of spelling errors. You must include a properly formatted title page, in-text citations where appropriate, and a reference page formatted according to current APA guidelines.

ANSWER

Airspace Capacity Challenges

Delay and Congestion in Air Transportation

One of the major challenges faced by the air transportation sector is flight delays that are caused by various factors including system congestion. Mitigating the effects of these challenges would result to efficient allocation and utilization of the national airport and airspace capacity, which are public policy imperatives that will positively impact the air transportation network in the long-term (National Research Council, 2002). Among all passenger complaints, flight delays are the most prevalent received by the U.S. DOT (Department of Transportation). These add up to about 40% of the complaints. In the year 2000, The Air Transportation Association and FAA reported that approximately over $5 billion was incurred by passengers and airlines in costs related to flight delays.

The impact of capacity on the national airspace has been seen vividly. To start with, navigation, marketing, airline operational management and air traffic control have been streamlined by the extensive use and automation of advanced computer technology and digital communications (Donohue et. al., 2000). Secondly, the time between ordering and receiving of goods has been greatly reduced through the use of instant purchasing and marketing products through the use of the Internet. Finally in this context, intermodal and seamless transport service can be observed due to the linking of road vehicle, ship, air and rail passenger transport.

Several plans have been made by the FAA to address the issues at the NAS (National Airspace System) level in order to improve on air traffic control systems. Adding new runways has been foreseen to allow independent streams of arrival or departure. To allow runways to be simultaneously used in all conditions of the weather, technology innovation and procedural changes would be necessary. The FAA would also privatize ATM services to grow international commerce by allowing for new procedures and technology. If the FAA can prove that its fares represent its cost of service, it can be allowed to charge oceanic international air traffic user fees, which helps manage air traffic.

Unscheduled equipment outages have had significant negative impacts on the availability of the national airspace system. On a daily basis, NAS has experienced reductions in airport throughput, flight delays and cancellations. Addressing the issue of equipment outages by understanding, reducing, and monitoring them would be valuable in improving airport and airspace operations and capacity. Rakas &Yin (2005) address this issue by analyzing intervals on landing time to assess an airport’s operational properties using the PDARS (Performance Data Analysis and Reporting System) database.

Measuring and increasing airport capacity takes much more than just improving on the tarmac, terminals and runways in the airport. As discussed, the national airspace capacity in America has been adversely affected by the unavailability of sufficient and equipment. Understanding this provides a good base for identifying the necessary improvements to be made. Flight delays and congestion must be addressed if the air transportation sector is to be efficient, yielding appropriate returns for the capital invested.

Some of the ways that capacity can be improved is through improving information sharing in airports, efficiently utilizing the available resources, balancing the demand to match the available resources, making use of the right sequence in operations and ensuring consistency throughout. Benchmarking on how other national airspaces have done their capacity building would provide a sufficient base for completing the tasks in the most appropriate way. In addition to that, making sure that the human resources are well motivated and trained in their skills.

References

Donohue, G., Brecht-Clarke, J., Fromme, W., Guffey, D. J., Lebron, J. E., Martel, N., … &           Yazdani, A. (2000). Airspace and airports: Critical issues for the 21st     century. Transportation in the New Millennium.

National Research Council (US). Transportation Research Board. Committee for a Study of         Public-Sector Requirements for a Small Aircraft Transportation System, & National         Research Council. (2002). Future flight: a review of the small aircraft transportation system concept (Vol. 263). Transportation Research Board.

Rakas, J., & Yin, H. (2005). Modeling the Impact of Equipment Outages on National Airspace    System Operations. In AIAA 5th ATIO and16th Lighter-Than-Air Sys Tech. and Balloon    Systems Conferences (p. 7360).