DFW System Cuts Delays

<H1>DFW System Cuts Delays</H1><H3>By Barbara Cook</H3>

Washington, D.C. - Business travelers with flights booked through Dallas/Fort Worth should notice a major reduction in flight delays this fall. The airport will complete a long-awaited $166 million air traffic control system upgrade that is expected to slash area delays by 75 percent.

The new Metroplex Air Traffic System Plan is expected to save the industry and the traveling public $10 billion over the next 20 years as a result of delay reduction, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The system, which will be switched on Oct. 10, has been under construction since January 1987 and is designed to provide increased arrival and departure routes.

In announcing the targeted completion of the project, FAA administrator David Hinson said it would boost the capacity of the nation's air traffic control system nationwide by 15 percent, in addition to the 75 percent gain at DFW.

Some 68 separate construction projects make up the Metroplex plan, including a new terminal radar approach control facility, two additional control towers, state-of-the-art radar systems and 19 communications facilities.

To operate the high-tech system, air traffic controllers and service technicians in the DFW region will undergo additional training, according to the FAA. The program will involve what is described as "a major training exercise" for 532 controllers and "a minor training period" for another 702 controllers.

Hinson said the Metroplex system is the largest airspace modification ever attempted by the FAA at one time. When the system is inaugurated, all published navigation charts for the DFW area will be changed, and all existing airspace and procedures within a 150-mile radius of the airport will be erased, he said.

DFW International Airport is ranked as the second busiest in the world, with projections that the facility will be the world's busiest airport by the year 2000.