ATM-Weather Integration Plan, Version 1.0
Abstract
Weather delays account for 70% of the $41B annual cost of air traffic delays within the United States NAS, or $28B annually. Approximately two thirds ($19B) of these delays are considered to be avoidable. The Weather-Air Traffic Management (ATM) Integration Working Group (WAIWG) of the National Airspace System (NAS) Operations Subcommittee of the FAA's Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee (REDAC) conducted a 12-month study to examine the potential benefits of integrating weather and air traffic management. The report of this committee made several recommendations regarding integration of weather and the potential for weather integration to help reduce delays. The way to mitigate these delays and eliminate those that are avoidable is to improve the quality and method of use of weather information and evolve (integrate) the weather support to the NAS. This NextGen Weather Integration Plan provides the initial requirements, scope, and implementation roadmap to achieve the NextGen vision: to enable decision makers to identify areas where and when aircraft can fly safely with weather assimilated into the decision making process to optimize the entire NAS. It also addresses agency roles and responsibilities and includes resource requirements. This plan establishes the approach to deal with the integration of weather information into the ATM decision making process. Integration, as used in this plan, refers to the inclusion of weather information into the logic of a decision process or a decision aid such that weather impacts are taken into account when the decision is made or recommended. The goal of weather integration is to minimize the need for humans to gauge NAS weather impacts or to determine the optimum mitigation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 17, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA507063