Severe Weather Avoidance Program Performance Metrics for New York Departure Operations*

When operationally significant weather affects the National Airspace System (NAS) a Severe Weather Avoidance Program (SWAP) is initiated. Each SWAP event is a unique mix of demand, weather conditions, traffic flow management (TFM) initiatives and traffic movement. Following a SWAP, the day’s events are reviewed and the TFM initiatives used are evaluated to understand their impact on the traffic flows, benefits, and disadvantages. These analyses require an accurate representation of the conditions during SWAP and objective, data-driven metrics to determine the effectiveness of the implemented TFM initiatives, and to identify opportunities for improved decision making in future events. As part of the ongoing development and evaluation of the Route Availability Planning Tool (RAPT) [1], a departure management decision support prototype currently deployed in New York, several detailed metrics were developed to streamline these analyses. This paper focuses on metrics that address the most significant concern regarding departure flows from New York airports: the timely reopening of departure routes that have been closed due to convective weather impacts. These metrics are derived from two datasets: flight tracks from the Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS) to monitor the flight traffic, and route blockage from the Route Availability Planning Tool (RAPT) to determine the impact of weather on routes. RAPT automatically identifies Post-ImpactGREENs (PIGs) the period of time when routes are clear (‘GREEN’) after being blocked by convective weather. Identifying PIGs early is a key element of the RAPT concept of operations, which