usatoday.com — A World War II-era air traffic network that often forces planes to take longer, zigzagging routes is costing U.S. airlines billions of dollars in wasted fuel while an upgrade to a satellite-based system has languished in the planning stages for more than a decade.
Oct 13, 2008 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountOct 13, 2008
The department of public FUD does not approve of making airlines more efficient.keep em frustrated, keep em scared!
drewsblmOct 13, 2008
Major tom thanks for coming in here and saying what I was going to say. Stupid article aimed at people who don't understand the established infrastructure. It's just going to make them whine about the airline industry even more without them actually understanding any single bit of it.
diggydougieOct 13, 2008
FTA "...If the network were in place today, it would essentially pay for itself in just seven years." Sounds like more bureaucratic nonsense to me. They should just put the systems in place as wanted like people do in cars. The expense is in the FAA, not in the equipment. And the better systems will be adopted most.
machthreeOct 13, 2008
Sounds like a much better investment than the bailout package! From the sounds of it, it will pay itself off in 7 years, if it will indeed cost $35 billion and save $5 billion a year.
disodiumOct 14, 2008
Ahh the "big Sky" theory, as an Air Traffic Controller i can tell you it dosent work. I watch VFR aircraft fly around in "free flight" all day long and you'd be surprised that with over ten thousand square miles of airspace where i am the amount of times they cross the same point in space only at different altitudes thanks to the rules that keep opposite direction traffic at alternating altitudes. Of course these are the guys i'm not talking to, the ones i am that are VFR are still responsible to look out for traffic, i only tell them about any i see.
l0c0locoOct 14, 2008
Capacity will increase when they take the obsolete humans out of the picture. Planes with pilots TALKING to humans sitting in front of computer screens is not the most efficient model. GPS, digital command & data links, and a mesh network comprised of the aircraft themselves, without people in the loop (yes, we'll keep them around for a while to monitor the loop until folks get comfortable with the idea of automated flight) would be superior. NextGen is a step in the right direction, but wait for GenNext!More runways are not the solution. Hub-and-spoke is dead. Long live point-to-point!
convplanitOct 20, 2008
Interesting to consider, nonetheless...