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The FAA’s Tools to Reduce Delays

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Delays may be a perennial travel pitfall, but in addition to the NextGen system, the FAA has other high-tech solutions that they hope will help curb the rising rates. Among them is adaptive compression software, launched this March, which continuously scans for vacant time slots at airports, and then fills them. In the past, when slots were freed up by cancellations, delays, or rerouting, airlines had no way of finding out and taking advantage of the available space.

Airspace flow programs, which minimize climate-related backlogs and congestion, have also been rolled out at 11 more locations in the South and Midwest this year. They let carriers choose between waiting out a storm or flying around it so that it’s not necessary to ground every flight at an airport because of bad weather.

With the goal of slashing delays 20 percent by 2011, the FAA has also reorganized 31,000 square miles of East Coast airspace. The new plan will soon enable planes in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia to take off in multiple directions on new flight paths, making departures far more efficient at airports that have often been at the bottom of the list when it comes to on-time records.

—W.S.T.

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