10 Ways to Fix Air Travel

• air travel
• aircraft
• Airbus
• Boeing
• FAA
• technology
• aviation

Upgrade Air Traffic Control (ATC)

Under the current ATC system, which relies on ground-based radar, controllers leave a 5-mile buffer between planes in the air and about 3 miles between aircraft on landing and takeoff. The FAA is testing a GPS-based satellite navigation system called NextGen, which by 2025 should allow for closer spacing because of faster, more precise location information. Currently, pilots fly almost blind to other traffic—and controllers can only see planes in their assigned airspace. But a NextGen avionics package called ADS-B will let pilots and ATC see other planes in real time and will pick more direct, less congested routes. Another potential fix is to give ATC greater perspective: Because controllers focus solely on their regions, their routing decisions don’t consider whole-system impacts. Giving agents control over traffic at individual waypoints along nearby flight paths would mean a wider view of congestion—and control decisions that benefit the entire system.

Auction Off Slots

It’s already cheaper to fly at midweek than on a Monday or Friday, so why shouldn’t airports charge airlines—and, therefore, customers—more for the most desirable takeoff and landing times? Prime times and locations could even be auctioned, says George Donohue, a George Mason University systems engineer, helping to spread traffic throughout the day and away from the busiest airports.

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