The Future of Air Traffic Control

Overscheduling Flights: Greedy Airlines Create Delays Daily

Greedy airlines cause thousands of delays daily, scheduling more flights than airports can actually handle. Air Traffic Controllers are exhausted playing catch-up. Flyers suffer. It’s a problem not addressed by NextGen, and not likely to end soon.

Each airport has a maximum rate for safe operations. That is to say, there are a maximum number of planes that can depart and land per hour, in perfect weather conditions. It’s called the Arrival/Departure Rate. If there’s a plane on the runway already, you can’t land because it’s not safe. There are a limited number of runways at each airport, and therefore a limited number of arrivals or departures that can happen each hour.  We all know the weather is rarely perfect, and this sometimes results in delays. Adding to those delays are the airline’s ability to schedule flights to airports around the country that exceed the arrival/departure rate for that particular airport. Below is part of a testimony by the President of the National Air Traffic Control Association to give an inside view into what overscheduling means. The full testimony can be read by following the link at the end of this article.

At Newark:

[At Newark-Liberty International Airport, on the morning of Sept. 5, controllers arrived at work and discovered that they would instantly need to start issuing delay information to specific flights. The reason? Between 9-10 a.m., there were 57 flights scheduled to depart the airport. But Newark can only handle 45. That meant 12 flights right off the bat were instantly delayed before the beautiful sunny morning could even progress any further.]

[A more detailed look:

o In the three hours from 5-8 p.m., when the airport can accept 46 arrivals per hour for a total of 138, there were 160 scheduled arrivals. Those late arrivals put a heavier burden on the "big" 8 p.m. departure hour when 51 departures were scheduled.

o Adding in all the late arrivals, there are more than 60 planes needing to depart in that hour when the airport can only support 44-45. ]

[The bottom-line is that once the airport is scheduled beyond its capacity, any operational issue will only worsen delays built into the system by airline over scheduling.]

At Chicago-O’Hare:

[Also on Sept. 7, the delays were scheduled to mount. And that’s before any aircraft touched the runways. At 8:15 a.m., there were 41 departures scheduled. But the airport can only handle 25 as previously stated. This means there were 16 flights that automatically were delayed due to the laws of concrete and physics. Those 16 flights spilled into the next half hour, which already had 16 flights scheduled, bringing the total for that 15-minute block to 32, which is SEVEN more than the airport could handle and which spilled into the next half hour, where there were 19 flights scheduled.

�� At 10 a.m., there were 39 departures scheduled, meaning that if everything went perfectly, 14 flights were late just by sheer volume delays caused by overscheduling.

�� At 1 p.m., there were 50 departures scheduled, with another 28 waiting to depart at 1:15 p.m. and 26 more at 1:30 p.m. Between 1 - 2 p.m. CDT, the total departures scheduled were 123. The airport can only handle 100. ]

The above testimony includes many examples of overscheduling, not just the few I’ve listed here.

 Does the government need to regulate the amount of traffic that can be scheduled based on the capacity for each airport?  The FAA has the ability to limit the number of arrivals and departures scheduled, but they have proven to be hesitant to address the situation.

Should the airlines be fined for knowingly creating customer delays? Possibly. It’s not right to lie to your customers, and when they say you’ll get there at a certain time, knowing you can’t, it’s lying. There should be some kind of penalty for knowingly being untruthful, especially in business.

Are the airlines over scheduling practices driving out exhausted controllers who are in desperate need of time off? When controllers are stuck playing catch-up for hours because of the overscheduling, they become exhausted. It’s been going on for years now, and many controllers have left their occupation for reasons including being overworked. I believe the airlines do have a share of the blame.

Is overscheduling partially responsible for the severe amount of time it takes for an Air Traffic Control Trainee to get checked out at the nation’s busiest airports? Of course! When there are high levels of traffic you want the most experienced controllers working. That means at peak times there’s no training being accomplished, creating a situation where the most experienced in the field, the trainers, are completely worn out. Once controllers get mentally exhausted, not only is it a safety issue, but the quality of training is diminished. Additionally, those trainees are stuck in training for years, waiting on time in position where they could actually be taught something.

NextGen’s expansion of airports will help with the traffic, but at the same time, if the airlines are not called down on these unrealistic scheduling practices, they will continue to overschedule flights. After the runway expansion projects around the nation are complete, there will be more room to land planes, and the arrival/departure rate will increase at each airport. How many runways will each airport get? This depends on government funding. If there’s not enough money to buy land and build ten extra runways, maybe your airport will only get 1 new runway out of the deal. With the projected number of air travelers in the coming years climbing into the billions, there will be more flyers , and therefore more opportunities for greedy airlines to over schedule flights and swamp the flying public with delays. For who of us has stepped up to stop them?

The airlines are in a position to help with their scheduling practices, but will they? Or will they continue to make money hand over fist with no regard to their customers’ satisfaction. The future of aviation is at stake, and we all must work together to make it happen safely. Just a small concession on the part of airline schedulers has the potential to change the way the aviation industry operates, creating a reduction in delays and controller workload, which will put a smile on every face in America.

By: Amber Markham, Air Traffic Controller

Link to NATCA President’s full testimony:

http://www.natca.org/assets/Documents/legislationcenter/NATCADelaystestimonyFINAL.pdf