As Skies Grow Crowded, FAA Preps Air Traffic Control 2.0

Oct. 25, 2007 — -- If you were one of the thousands of Americans stuck at an airport or stranded on a runway this past summer, you're probably not surprised that 2007 is shaping up as the worst year ever for flight delays, with nearly 30 percent of all flights arriving late between January and August. That's just the beginning. With U.S. flights projected to double in the next 20 years, the Federal Aviation Administration says that the current air-traffic-control system will be effectively gridlocked by 2015.

In the face of mounting public and congressional outcry, the FAA claims it has an answer: a planned overhaul called NextGen. For $15 to $22 billion, it will replace the nation's aging, radar-powered air-traffic-control network with one that relies on GPS and advanced avionics.

A much-needed upgrade, the new system may help defuse growing concerns over air traffic safety. The Associated Press reported this week that a secret NASA study found incidents of near collisions, bird strikes and last minute changes to landing plans occur far more frequently than previously known.

But some argue the planned upgrade ignores the core issues facing air traffic control, or ATC, and a bitter debate is raging over who should pay for the new system.

Getting an aircraft from point A to point B safely is currently no easy task. Air traffic controllers based at a flight's departure airport direct taxi, takeoff and initial climb. Then they hand planes off to one of 21 regional ATC stations scattered across the country, where controllers monitor flights using a patchwork of short- and long-range radar equipment. Flights are passed from station to station until approaching their arrival airport, where another crew of controllers handles descent and landing.

Built on World War II technology, the system is showing its age. Planes move quickly, and radar takes anywhere from three to 12 seconds to accurately read a position. So, the FAA requires separation of at least 1,000 feet vertically between planes, and three to five miles horizontally.

Controllers organize up to 5,000 planes in the sky in any given hour by slotting them into a series of fixed flight paths. But these highways in the sky are susceptible to rush-hour backups, especially at intersections. When a route or hub closes because of weather, delays often reverberate through the rest of the system.

That's where NextGen comes in. The biggest component of the planned system is a satellite-based network known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast. ADS-B uses a GPS signal to determine an aircraft's position in the sky and transmit this information once per second to other aircraft, and to a national network of ground stations that relay it to air traffic control.

ADS-B-enabled planes will be equipped with onboard monitors that allow them to see not only their own precise location, but that of other aircraft. Monitors will also display external data like weather and aeronautical information, a part of the system known as Flight Information Services-Broadcast, or FIS-B. Today, pilots receive weather reports from commercial services or verbal updates from air traffic controllers.

The FAA's Laura Brown says ADS-B will help reduce congestion in several ways.

"Because it will provide such precise information about where planes are located, we think we'll be able to operate them closer to one another in some parts of the air space," she says. "Which means more capacity." Brown adds that the system will allow controllers to handle more aircraft, which means fewer handoffs from controller to controller. "Ultimately, the system is more effective if you are able to limit the amount of communication back and forth."

In late August, the FAA awarded ITT a $207 million initial contract to develop and deploy the ADS-B infrastructure. ITT will build 794 ground stations, each of which are "the size of a dorm-room refrigerator" according to Brown, as well as control and network-operation centers, a telecommunications network and service-delivery points that interface with existing air-traffic-control stations. Many of the ground stations will be housed in existing cell phone towers owned by AT&T.

"The use of commercial towers for deploying government assets is not uncommon," says John Tefaliotis, ITT's director of business development fo FAA & ATC programs, "though it may be a first for the FAA." ITT will own the ADS-B system, and will essentially lease it to the FAA. "It means we're not building a duplicate of a system that already exists," Brown says. "And it allows our vendors to utilize their existing assets."

Under FAA's specifications, ITT will use a two-frequency system for relaying information in ADS-B. Smaller, lower-flying general-aviation aircraft will use the Universal Access Transceiver frequency -- a relatively cost-effective way for small-plane operators to become ADS-B-equipped. Larger aircraft will link to ADS-B with 1090ES, which is compatible with current technology used to operate the Traffic Collision and Avoidance System that helps prevent mid-flight collisions.

"Much of the commercial fleet is already equipped with this technology," Tefaliotis explains. He says the two-frequency strategy will help reduce costs associated with upgrading to the new system, which will promote more rapid acceptance.

ITT will roll ADS-B out in phases, beginning next year in Louisville, Kentucky; Juneau, Alaska; Philadelphia; and oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

But some airlines aren't waiting. UPS already uses ADS-B to track its planes on the tarmac at its massive Louisville hub. The company is awaiting FAA certification of a more advanced ADS-B system it calls SafeRoute. It would be the first large-scale commercial deployment of a NextGen system to manage planes in flight.

"Today, a controller has to corral all the planes coming into an airport and vector them around the skies near the airport to land them safely, which adds both fuel burn and time to flights," says UPS's Mike Mangeot. "With SafeRoute, our pilots will effectively be able to line themselves up in an organized queue." UPS predicts the system will save up to a million gallons of fuel per year and increase landings per hour by 10 percent to 15 percent.

But not everyone thinks NextGen is the cure for what ails the nation's skies. "You can add a GPS system to my car, and it's not going to get me to work any faster if traffic is bumper-to-bumper," says Doug Church of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "Ultimately, the issue is airport and runway capacity, and doesn't have much to do with what's going on in the air."

Church adds that a technology that allows more planes to take off won't be popular in residential suburbs that are reaching ever closer to big airports. "People don't want the noise, and they don't want the planes flying over their houses," he says.

Also at issue is who will foot the bill for ATC modernization. John Meenan, executive vice president of the Air Transport Association, says the FAA's current funding mechanism -- which depends in large part on fuel charges, passenger taxes and fees -- puts an unfair burden on commercial operators.

"A 757 flying between New York and Chicago might pay $2,000, while a corporate jet flying the same route, using the same ATC resources, would only pay around $150," he says. The Alliance for Aviation Across America, which represents general aviation, disagrees, arguing that it's the airlines' use of hub-and-spoke networks that increases ATC costs and drives delays. Congress is scheduled to pass a bill that deals with FAA funding by mid-November

In the meantime, the agency is moving forward with its plans for ADS-B, and recently proposed that all aircraft be ADS-B-ready no later than 2020. But if ADS-B is indeed the path to safer, less-congested skies, 13 years seems like an awfully long time to wait.