Fewer delays coming “soon,” as in “twenty years.”
Commercial airlines are trying to reduce costs and maximize profits by relying on more smaller planes, rather than fewer larger ones. That means more planes in the air at any one time, and more planes waiting to take off and waiting to land. The FAA’s antiquated air control system doesn’t help matters. But change is in the air. Just don’t hold your breath.Not helping matters is that the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association are locked in a contract dispute. The air traffic controllers believe real relief will only come with more of their own manning the radar screens, and better pay. The FAA says people are not the problem. Hmm? Both parties can agree that improved technologies will indeed help matters, so that’s good.
Thing is, the new system that the FAA and the airlines are jonesing for, one that relies on satellites, comes with a $15 billion pricetag. And to make matters worse, we are at least 20 years from the point where that system, called NextGen, will come online. And we thought sitting on the tarmac for four hours was torture!
You may want to write your local Congressperson and urge him or her to help the FAA and the air traffic controllers work things out and find a way to get NextGen operational in, say, ten years versus 20. Of course, five years would be better still.
