Washington – Worried that the summer thunderstorm season could snarl air traffic, federal regulators said they will expand a program aimed at reducing weather-related delays.
Officials used the initiative – the Airspace Flow Program – in the Northeast last year and said it was successful in reducing and more fairly spreading out delays.
In the past, the Federal Aviation Administration has halted traffic at airports to prevent congestion in the sky caused by thunderstorms.
Those “ground stops” closed down chunks of airspace, affecting flights that were scheduled to pass through or even near those storm areas. For example, if there was a line of thunderstorms over western Pennsylvania, controllers might halt flights from Miami to New York, even for planes on that route that were not going to pass through the storms.
However, new computer software allows controllers to identify and then delay only those flights scheduled to pass through the affected airspace. The FAA then gives airlines the option of delaying flights or trying to find a way around the storms.
Federal officials implemented the program about 40 times last year, said Mike Sammartino, director of system operations at the FAA.
FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has hailed the program in speeches, saying it reduced delays during severe weather by about 21 percent for flights heading to the Eastern United States. She said she expects the program to save airlines hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade.
A trade group that represents major U.S. carriers supports expansion of the program, saying it has more fairly distributed delays and made it easier to plan for rerouting flights.
“Before, you were looking at a broad swath of ground delay programs that in many cases captured flights that would go nowhere near the constrained area,” said Basil Barimo, vice president of operations and safety at the Air Transport Association. “The program presents (airlines) with options.”
