I’m Leavin’ on a Jet Plane…Soon, I Hope.

George Brandley, a high school English teacher, was delayed at the airport for over nine hours while trying to travel home for Thanksgiving. His flight from LAX to Newark, originally scheduled to depart at 9:30 AM, was delayed throughout the day.

“They were very secretive about the developments, in fact they were switching people’s flights before they made the announcement that it was pushed back to 6:30pm, if it was to take off at all,” Brandley said.

Brandley’s story is common, as flight delays seem inevitable – especially around the holidays. In December of 2008, over one quarter of flights departing LAX were delayed. And, according to a Dec. 8 press release from the Bureau of Transportation Services, flight delays are only getting worse: “Flights operated by the nation’s largest airlines arrived on time at a lower rate this past October than in either October of last year or in September 2009.”
Data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics for Dec. 2008 indicates that, of the busiest U.S. Airports, LAX actually had the lowest percentage of delayed flights, at 27 percent. The airports with the most delays were Chicago O’Hare, with almost 40 percent of their flights delayed 15 minutes or more, and Salt Lake City International and San Francisco International, each with over a third of their departures delayed.
As passengers find themselves at the threshold of this year’s holiday travel season, is there any hope?
In a word, yes. Kind of.

“There’s a ton of pressure to get that door closed,” said Capt. Mark Merwick, a pilot with Pinnacle Airlines.

The FAA is responsible for controlling the flow of air traffic. It plans daily flight schedules and sets departure times, and any change to the schedule – such as a delay – has a ripple effect on the entire system.
Different factors cause flight delays, and different parties are responsible for them. For example, a weather system or air traffic congestion (both common around the holidays) will cause the FAA to issue a ground hold. The airlines are not responsible for these delays and there is nothing they can do about them. “A lot of times, for a 45 minute delay or so, you put passengers on the plane and you just ride it out,” Merwick said. “But you tell them what’s going on.”
Barring an FAA-mandated delay, Merwick receives a phone call from his base manager if his flight closes its doors even one minute late, regardless of whether they reach their destination on time.

“If we’re out, let’s say, in Richmond, we have 25 minutes from the time that we land and that door opens up to get the passengers off to getting everyone on, the door shut; We have 25 minutes to make that turn or else it goes back on the crew as a crew delay,” Merwick explained.

Kevin Hightower is a collaborative air traffic management (CATM) systems architect at Lockheed Martin. He said that the relatively recent shift in passengers’ priorities – from choosing their preferred airline to choosing the cheapest ticket– has prompted airlines to reexamine their practices. Hightower said,

“If you look at the history of air travel, it used to be that airlines tried to get people to stay with the same airline forever. And that meant taking care of people, making sure they were satisfied, and opening up links or connections between airports based on where people needed to get to.”

Hightower said that the FAA, in addition to safety rules and air traffic regulation, is shifting focus back to the passenger. “The FAA used to be all about safety and strictness and now it’s a little bit more about the person involved,” he said.
Hightower and his colleagues are working to develop a better system of communication between the FAA, the airlines, and the passengers. Hightower explained that collaboration is necessary, as there are a lot of players involved.
In a typical scenario, for example, when the plane closes its doors and pushes back, the airline is in charge initially. Ground control taxis the plane out to the runway, and gets the airline close to departure. Then the tower takes over and officially departs the plane. The plane is then in the terminal area as it climbs to full altitude, and is then considered en route.
The FAA has implemented procedures to reduce delays, such as Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM), which reduced the required distance of separation between planes flying above 28,000 feet from 2000 ft. to 1000 ft. RVSM requires special equipment and training, but according to Merwick, “it alleviated a lot of traffic, especially out on the East Coast.” And the FAA is developing the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), the goals of which are to create a better system of air traffic management.
Within the NextGen system plan, Hightower explains, “there is a piece called collaborative air traffic management – that is the collaboration between the airlines and the FAA.”
Hightower is designing the systems that the airlines and the FAA are going to use for collaboration, which combine surveillance with trajectory planning.

“We developed a system to not only show them what’s going on at the airport but also to help them predict what’s going to happen,” he said.

Right now, there is a big push to get surveillance, which, like radar, communicates a plane’s position. But, Hightower said, “we’re saying go beyond surveillance.”
The positive effects of improved airline-FAA collaboration will be multifaceted, benefiting the FAA and airlines as well as the passengers. The new NextGen system would allow the FAA to be better informed, and in turn to better inform passengers not only of the instance of delays but also the reasons for them. Imagine getting a text message saying that your flight is delayed an hour, and saving you from running across the airport. Or imagine being told before boarding that your baggage will be on the next flight, saving you the moment of panic when the last bag is taken from the baggage claim belt and yours has yet to make an appearance.
The work of Hightower and his colleagues would allow the FAA to focus on planning and minimize delays, but, it would not eliminate delays. In fact, in certain situations, it may do just the opposite. For example, Hightower explained that sometimes it makes sense for the airline to sit at the gate for some additional time if it will enable more passengers to board. As they operate now, some airlines do this but do not have an effective way notifying the FAA. The new system would promote communication among the airline, the FAA and the passengers.

“We’re going to say 30-45 minutes out, you can start getting people on board, the pilot knows exactly when he’s going to leave – which may or may not be on time- but they know the exact reasoning why up front.”

So can passengers expect great reductions in delays this holiday season? Probably not. But they need to keep in mind that all parties involved – the FAA and the flight crew- have a vested interest in timely departure. Perhaps passengers can take comfort in knowing that the FAA has new plans in the works. According to Hightower, the program could potentially be implemented within 2 years, once the FAA decides to get started.

For Airports with over 10,000 flights in December 2008, which day of the week has the worst delays? One more reason to hate Mondays…

*KEY FOR AIRPORT CODES:

To view the percent of flights delayed in December 2008 for all major airports, click here

We analyzed flight departure data using MS Access and then ran numbers, sorted, and filtered in MS Excel. Data was obtained from www.bts.gov.
From the BTS Site: “Airline on-time data are reported each month to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) by the 18 U.S. air carriers that have at least 1 percent of total domestic scheduled-service passenger revenues, plus two other carriers that report voluntarily. The data cover nonstop scheduled-service flights between points within the United States (including territories) as described in 14 CFR Part 234 of DOT’s regulations.”