Hi everyone. I posted in reference to this the other day. Somehow the story seems to have slipped through the cracks. I haven't seen any mention of it in most of the usual places (Gary North, Y2K Newswire, etc.) You'd think they would have been all over it. Here's the link to the story:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/travel/DailyNews/faareport990901.html

I looked for the FAA's version of the original report that was supposedly released to the major news agencies at the FAA website, but couldn't find it. Has anyone else located it? If not, any suggestions on where else to look?

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), September 06, 1999

Answers

[ Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only ]

FAA Admits Holding Pattern

Report Blasts Outdated Air Traffic Control System

Everything from the weather to computer problems have conspired to make flight delays far more frequent this summer. Click on the interactive for details on some of the bigger problems around the country. (ABCNEWS.com)

By Bill Brewster

ABCNEWS.com

Sept. 1  The Federal Aviation Administration blew the whistle on itself today by releasing a report that intimates that the nations air traffic control system has been pushed to the breaking point.

The report describes a system beset by difficulties with equipment, communications, planning, training and timeliness. Separately, FAA chief administrator Jane Garvey met with representatives of various media organizations, including ABCNEWS, to explain the issues described in the report and what the FAA is doing to fix them. The reports executive summary says the system is currently not being used to achieve maximum efficiency, and says some traffic-management procedures are slow to be implemented and poorly coordinated among different control facilities.

We are never going to be able to eliminate delays completely, Garvey said. But our job is to manage the system as efficiently and always as safely as we can.

Flight Delays Take Off

The traffic control system has been especially strained this summer, and evaluators gave air traffic controllers bad marks for the ways they communicate with airplane pilots and with each other, how they space planes for arrival and departure efficiently, and how and when they decide to hold planes from arriving and departing on time. The report was based on surveys of FAA facilities this summer by a team of more than 80 evaluators that included controllers, FAA officials and representatives from the U.S. airline industry. The evaluators visited 33 sites between July 19 and Aug. 6.

In the first eight months of 1999, flight delays are up nearly 20 percent over the same period last year. (A delayed flight is defined as one that reaches its destination more than 15 minutes late.)

Approximately three-quarters of all flight delays have been caused by bad weather in both years, but the fastest-growing category of delays is those attributed to problems with air traffic control equipment. There were 5,747 equipment delays in the first eight months of 1999, up 111 percent from the same period a year ago.

And flying times have been especially trying this summer, as the now-outdated equipment has been running at or near full capacity anyway, only to be slammed by frequent bad weather at major airports in the eastern United States and problems with overdue attempts to upgrade equipment at regional control centers.

All these problems spiraled together in July, when flight delays reached record levels, up 74 percent from the same month in 1998.

Trouble in Cleveland

The report was particularly critical of the systems busiest high-altitude control center, located in Cleveland, which airlines and other centers have accused of unnecessarily restricting traffic through its area.

Garvey and National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Mike McNally said Cleveland had undergone a difficult change in controllers computer screens in April that was still being felt.

McNally agreed controllers needed to become involved in traffic management but he faulted airline scheduling for some of the problems. You cant schedule everyone to take off at 7 oclock, he said. Theres enough blame to go around.

Few Quick Fixes

The FAA is undertaking a $13 billion overhaul of air traffic control computer systems, but by even the most optimistic schedule that project is years from completion.

David Stempler of the Air Travelers Association, a passenger advocacy group, says, The FAA has gotten so far behind with its equipment that its always trying to play catch-up.

Along with the computer overhaul, the FAA is slowly phasing in rules that will allow planes to navigate using Global Positioning System, thus enabling point-to-point flying with greater pilot control, instead of the current system of planes being forced to jockey for space on busy flight paths so they can fly over a network of ground beacons.

Most planes in the air today have GPS on board, but the system is not yet accurate enough to allow pilots to land planes safely in bad weather by GPS alone. The FAA estimates that the navigation change, which is affected by other things such as satellite upgrades, will be fully implemented by 2013.

Reuters contributed to this report.

-- mabel (mabel_louise@yahoo.com), September 06, 1999.

The good news is they're "compliant". The bad news is they're still using computers made in 1970...

-- a (a@a.a), September 06, 1999.