FAA Releases ATC Upgrade Plan

<B>FAA Releases ATC Upgrade Plan</B>

By Barbara Cook

<I>Washington - </I>The Federal Aviation Administration unveiled plans for a decade-long, $11.5 billion upgrade of the nation's air traffic control system that is intended to add 30 percent more capacity to the skies and ease delays and airline passenger frustration.

The modernization blueprint, known as the Operational Evolution Plan, consists of numerous related programs that center on gradually shifting air traffic control functions from radar to a satellite-based system and more sophisticated computer software.

Further, the government will provide better weather information to pilots, as well as better information on the location of other airplanes through the use of cockpit video maps.

Air traffic controllers will gain access to new software that will allow them to determine better aircraft routings, a plan that should result in fuel savings for the airlines.

The OEP is separated into near-term goals (2001), mid-term goals (2002-2004) and long-term goals (2005-2010), as FAA phases in new technology and concentrates on adding runways to many of the nation's most congested airports.

For this year, the plan includes new runways at Detroit and Phoenix, improved airport traffic patterns and a redesign of the airspace to reduce choke points in the Chicago-Washington, D.C.-Boston triangle.

The agency also will add precision approaches for runways at 14 airports and improve the dissemination of weather information to improve flight planning efficiency. Airlines will be encouraged to conclude land-and-hold-short procedures to increase runway capacity.

For the years 2002-2004, new runways or runway extensions will be completed at six of the top 31 airports: Charlotte, Denver, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Orlando. FAA said it will make more efficient use of parallel and crossing runways to boost capacity, coordinate management of surface movement at a larger number of airports to increase efficiency, handle routine ATC communications via data links to reduce pilot and controller workloads, improve weather displays to allow for timely rerouting of aircraft, and continue the transition to satellite navigation, among other upgrades.

In the long term, new runways will be added at another six of the top 31 airports--Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas/Fort Worth, Seattle, St. Louis and Washington Dulles--while other improvements will include closer spacing of arrivals, use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance spacing for suitably equipped aircraft and consolidation of selected FAA terminal radar centers to reduce the need for controller coordination.

FAA's much-ballyhooed attempt at ATC modernization in the late 1980s and early 1990s ended with the government spending upward of $2 billion before canceling the Advanced Automation System. This time, FAA is receiving support from system users, who applaud the agency's decision to work collaboratively with the industry in forming the OEP.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association announced that it "fully supports" the Operational Evolution Plan, noting it attacks "the four areas of greatest need: arrival/departure rates, en route congestion, airport weather conditions and en route severe weather."

"We are very encouraged by this announcement," said NATCA president John Carr. "We believe these capacity enhancements, in combination with the growing national urgency in building new runways, will best serve our nation's needs in the coming decade." The National Runways Coalition, as well as other organizations, also endorsed the plan.

Separately, FAA selected Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management to replace the agency's oceanic systems at the Anchorage, New York and Oakland centers, which handle air traffic in international airspace over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

The new system will integrate such functions as flight data processing, radar data processing, automatic dependent surveillance, controller-pilot data link and conflict probe, FAA said. The system is expected to result in efficiency improvements, fuel savings for the airlines and better on-time performance for air travelers.

FAA noted that the Lockheed Martin proposal is based on the system currently used by New Zealand for oceanic air traffic control and the U.S. Department of Defense and FAA's Microprocessor Enroute Automated Radar Tracking System.

The Lockheed Martin proposed system will be modified to handle the busier and more complex U.S. airspace, the agency said. FAA expects to award a firm fixed price contract after final negotiations with Lockheed Martin are completed in June.