The NextGen Fiasco Continues.
Crowding Skies – Another Myth
One of the throw-away lines in a lot of aviation media stories is how the FAA’s air traffic control system is struggling to cope with increasingly crowded skies.
It’s actually malarkey… take a look at the US airline system for the full year 2018 v 2007…
The skies have over 1.2 million fewer departures in the skies than a decade ago. More seats, due to changes in fleet mix – but a lot fewer airplanes.
Yes, this is slowly rebounding, but the fact is that today airlines are adding minutes to their schedules to accommodate the inefficiencies of the ATC system… and still, an arrival score of 85% within 15 minutes of schedule is considered an achievement.
But NextGen, a carrot-on-a-stick program consuming billions, is not to be questioned.
Even though it is years late and mired in unfocused bureaucracy.
Just do a check of the “progress” and the PR-jive at the FAA over the last 25 years… Lord knows the usual suspects in the aviation media aren’t doing it.