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ly equipped to reap the benefits of those
capabilities.”
NGIP Released
FAA on March 8 released the 2010
update of its NextGen Implementation
Plan (NGIP), laying out the agency’s
progress and goals for implementing new
operational capabilities in the mid-term
of 2012 to 2018.
The NGIP update supports many of
the recommendations issued last September by the RTCA NextGen Mid-Term
Implementation Task Force, including
the sharing surface movement data to
support collaborative decision-making
among industry stakeholders.
The plan also reiterates the agency’s
emphasis on safety and capacity enhancements, particularly in light of increasing
air traffic and the introduction of very
light jets, unmanned aircraft systems and
commercial space flights. Technologies
cited include Automatic Dependent Sur-veillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), data communications, performance-based navigation and safety management systems.
According to agency’s latest estimates,
NextGen will reduce total flight delays
by 2018 by about 21 percent, providing
$22 billion in cumulative benefits to the
traveling public, aircraft operators and
FAA. During this same period, FAA said
NextGen efficiencies will save more than
1.4 billion gallons of fuel from air traffic
operations alone, cutting carbon emissions by nearly 14 million tons.
“Policy, procedures and systems on
the ground and in the flight deck enable
the mid-term system,” according to an
executive summary. “We make the most
of technologies and procedures that are
in use today, as we introduce new systems
and procedures that will fundamentally
change air-traffic automation, surveil-
lance, communications, navigation and
the way we manage information.”
FAA acknowledges, however, that
achieving success will be challenging.
“Undertaking NextGen is extremely com-
plex, in part because systems in various
stages of development and maturity are
interdependent and will be implemented
in a variety of time frames,” FAA said.
“NextGen’s increasing dependency on
aircraft-centric capabilities means that
we must rely on operators’ willingness to
equip. We will not see real performance
improvements until operators are proper-
Aerospace Forecast
The sluggish economy will put the brakes
on growth in the U.S. commercial air
industry, according to a FAA forecast
released March 9.
FAA’s annual Aerospace Forecast pre-
dicts domestic passenger enplanements
will increase modestly, by 0.5 percent in
2010, and then grow an average of 2. 5
percent per year until 2030. In the short-
term, the agency expects to see declines in
both domestic and international capac-
ity as carriers respond to the economic
downturn. U.S. airlines will reach 1 bil-
lion passengers a year by 2023, two years
