Capacity

What is a reasonable time to wait? You bought your tickets, you rented a car, you booked a room, you showed up two hours early so you can get through security sans shoes, belt and watch, yet what is reasonable? Even with a "Passenger Bill of Rights," how long is to long and what the bleep is a $50 voucher going to do for you today?

The FAA, for lack of a better term, is in bed with the airlines; however, they are nothing more than lying whores in such a relationship. The FAA has promised the airlines that It will increase capacity, by hook or by crook, via any means necessary. The light at the end of the tunnel is NexGen. NexGen, or the next generation of air traffic control will combine global positioning (GPS) precision, with non-procedural weather avoidance, airspace redesign, reduced separation and Flight Management System (FMS) routing. All of which is fine and dandy in a simulation but in the real world...

GPS may be more accurate than the antiquated radar systems currently used. The system is asking you to have faith in a satellite that is vulnerable to to solar flares and meteorites.

Dynamic weather avoidance involves getting from point A to point B via re-routing over point C even though C is being used by someone else. Suppose, for instance that arrivals for Newark routinely crossed over Philadelphia, and arrivals for Kennedy crossed over Atlantic City. The Laguardia arrivals, naturally go somewhere in the middle. If Atlantic City is involved in a thunderstorm, we should just be able to shift everyone to the left, by 30 miles or so, right? Wrong. That airspace is already clogged with more Laguardia and Newark arrivals coming from Chicago airspace. Want to move them? Then you impact the Chicago to Kennedy routes. Also, don't forget the smaller airports and their arrival routes as well as the departure fixes going the other way. The solution here is to change the airspace so that noone gets caught with their pants down because of weather.

Which then leads you to airspace redesign. This is also known as fitting 10 lbs. of crap into a 5 lb. bag. Divergent departure headings that automatically separate aircraft after lift-off. Departure headings which suddenly impact you as a new departure route threatens to rip the roof off of house in places that never dealt with aircraft before. This does little to reduce the arrival demand for the airport but for those aircraft that were fortunate to have been in place (on-time) earlier, they can depart with little delay. Again, all fine and dandy, until somebody doesn't get switched to the next controller in time, or the controller gets everyone at the same time. No problem, the FAA can fix that too.

Reduced separation. See the earlier blog on Proximity Events for more information. My point is that when legal separation reduces from 3 miles to 2 miles, would you rather be a trailing aircraft or one that is head-on? This is a classic set-up move. The perceived intent is that separation errors will decrease, thus making the National Airspace System a safer place and guaranteeing bonuses for the cronies that never donned a headset. However with the ever increasing need to overload that 5 lb. bag, the controllers will attempt to work their magic so as to avoid the penultimate charge of engaging in a slow-down.

The FAA is naturally introducing Flight Management procedures which reduce the need for controllers to interact until separation resolution becomes necessary. They've started ONE standardized arrival into Newark. There are 9 arrival routings into Newark. Anyone care to bet on the odds that you never need to be vectored to land? Even if they automate all 9, is a computer going to handle your arrival or will there be a controller there to break the tie? And 3 ties, and 4, and 5? Breaking one tie could have a ripple effect that lasts for hours.

Hours. The amount of time you spend waiting. Hours you spend holding on the ground or in the air because the FAA can't deliver upon It's promise of increased capacity. What is a reasonable time to wait?

Can you wait 30 years? That's about how long it should take the child of a current air traffic controller to invent the transporter.