For those of you looking for a classic case of bureaucratic deadlock or for those looking for reasons why our air travel system is getting worse, here's a comprehensive look at the never ending struggles of the FAA.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_37/b4049001.htm

Some highlights:

Quote :

"And if you think the Summer from Hell is over, fasten your seat belt. The FAA predicts 1 billion passengers a year will take to the skies by 2015, a 36 percent increase from the current level. FAA officials say this year's Labor Day crunch could become an everyday flying fiasco within eight years, costing America's economy $22 billion annually... So why is it that we can put a man on the moon but can't fly him from Atlanta to Charlotte, N.C., without at least a two-hour delay? While Blakey bears some responsibility for the abysmal state of air travel, she follows a long line of FAA chiefs who failed to put much of a dent in the agency's to-do list. It's not a lack of money. Last year the FAA did not spend all of the money it was allocated. Nor is it a lack of knowhow. Existing technology could easily meet the demands created by the exploding number of fliers. Nor, for that matter, is it security concerns. Instead, it's a fundamental organizational failure: Nobody is in charge. The various players in the system, including big airlines, small aircraft owners, labor unions, politicians, airplane manufacturers, and executives with their corporate jets, are locked in permanent warfare as they fight to protect their own interests. And the FAA, a weak agency that needs congressional approval for how it raises and spends money, seems incapable of breaking the gridlock. "The FAA as currently structured is impossible to run efficiently," says Langhorne M. Bond, administrator of the agency from 1977 to 1981... When no one's in charge, no one can be held accountable. Small aircraft operators blame the big airlines for scheduling too many flights out of the major airports. The big carriers say the smaller operators aren't paying their share of what it takes to maintain the air traffic control system. The controllers complain they are understaffed and underpaid, and that their facilities need repair. The FAA says it needs new revenue sources to invest in new technologies. Congress says the FAA needs to manage the money it has better. And passengers blame everybody in sight, but aren't willing to spend a dime more on tickets..."

Particularly interesting is the never ending battle to upgrade the air traffic control system, where the money and technology are in place but the politics prevent any progress on completion. You have a variety of interests clashing: airlines vs. private fliers on ATC usage payments, civilian vs. military on weather reporting, BRAC-like battles to prevent the closure or transfer or radar stations, and battles by residents against new airport construction and increased flights who then turn around and complain about delays at the airport. Everyone agrees upgrades are needed, but they fight on every other point while the rest of us fly around on a system coded in Jovial using flight paths designed in the 1920s.

9/13/2007 9:30:20 AM

interesting.

but i thought JOVIAL was an embedded language still only used in military avionics gear (target acquisition, AWACS, etc.).

and though i dont know much about FAA flight paths, certainly the flight paths are more recent than 1920's. that seems like hyperbole to me.

9/19/2007 2:11:37 PM

yea, the current flight plans are really more 1970's. but they are still based on the 20's models.

but the whole system has a lot more major issues that are avoided by keeping a manually operational system. if we move to full automation and the system ever does go down at any one airport, ALL air traffic nationwide would be grounded. There's no way to manually route the proposed system, even though it would be significantly more efficient when fully operational.

9/19/2007 2:17:51 PM

Quote :

"but i thought JOVIAL was an embedded language still only used in military avionics gear (target acquisition, AWACS, etc.)."

It wouldn't surprise me though that back when they built the existing system, the same contractors who built those military avionics (such as radar) stuck with JOVIAL when they built the civilian the civilian radar network for the ATC system.

Quote :

"but the whole system has a lot more major issues that are avoided by keeping a manually operational system."

That's certainly true, but given that we're already way over the capacity of the existing system and are still anticipating at least a 5% growth in domestic air traffic each year, some kind of upgrade needs to be done.

9/19/2007 5:26:16 PM