FAA: Upgrading air-traffic control requires cooperation

WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that a fire that knocked out regional air-traffic control around Chicago demonstrated the importance of upgrading equipment and of the industry working together.

Michael Huerta said the center in Aurora, Ill., reopened Monday after the "devastating" fire Sept. 26 because of the cooperation among managers, controllers and technicians. The fire allegedly set by a contract worker canceled 5,000 flights at O'Hare and Midway airports in the first week, but controllers in neighboring areas picked up the slack.

"This was an extraordinary team effort," Huerta told about 350 industry members at the Aero Club of Washington.

The same cooperation is needed across the industry to adopt new air-traffic control equipment and procedures, under a program called NextGen, Huerta said.

FAA is reporting its priorities for the program to Congress on Friday, Huerta said. Four priorities focus on guiding planes by satellite rather than radar, using runways better, improving the awareness of planes as they fly and streamlining departure clearances electronically rather than orally.

Satellite guidance has been pioneered at Seattle and Denver airports. In Houston, new flight paths are saving 3 million gallons of fuel a year, Huerta said.

These standards will be extended to Northern California, Charlotte and Atlanta "in the next few years," Huerta said.

In terms of runways, airlines are asking for better separation between planes to avoid wake turbulence.

New standards will be started at nine airports in five cities over the next year, Huerta said. The cities are Houston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Charlotte, he said.

After the runway standards were adopted this year in Cincinnati and Atlanta, Huerta said Delta Air Lines reported faster taxiing, reduced delays in departing and less time in the airspace around the airport, Huerta said.

"Industry and the FAA came together to choose these four NextGen priorities and we will deliver on them," Huerta said.

But for a program budgeted at $1 billion per year, Huerta said tight federal spending, unpredictable budgets and partisan disputes in Congress threaten future funding.

Congress is scheduled to debate FAA policy legislation next year, when Huerta says the industry must work as a team for consensus priorities.

"We will only realize the total benefits of our airspace system when we have an aviation industry that is engaged and is united around our priorities," Huerta said. "We need to rally around what is important, just as we all rallied together in Chicago to get the job done."