Air Traffic Management Decision Support During Convective Weather

VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2, 2007 LINCOLN LABORATORY JOURNAL 263 Thunderstorms are a dominant cause of commercial-aircraft delays in the United States and their impact is worsening, as shown in Figure 1. Although they are highly dynamic and are difficult to forecast over multi-hour time periods, these thunderstorms do not normally completely shut down airspace. Their effects, however, are fundamentally at odds with the structured, pre-planned flight-planning and control process that is the basis for today’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) system. As airport and high-altitude jet route congestion increases because of overall growth in operations, commercial fleet transition from turbo-props to regional jets, and the introduction of very light business jets, thunderstorm-related delays are expected to increase rapidly. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Office for Strategic Planning has estimated that thunderstorm-related delay costs may completely offset airline profits within ten years unless significantly improved coping strategies are developed [1]. Today’s thunderstorm response strategies are developed collaboratively by human traffic-flow management (TFM) specialists at FAA terminals, en route, and at national ATC facilities, and by ATC coordinators and dispatchers at airlines. The development of these strategies Air Traffic Management Decision Support During Convective Weather