FAA Considering Expansion of New York Terminal Airspace

Acting FAA Administrator Robert A. Sturgell told U.S. Senators last week that the FAA is considering expanding terminal airspace in the New York metropolitan area to take advantage of its closer spacing criteria in order to increase its capacity. The agency also wants to use RNP (required navigation performance) and other technology to gain similar benefits.

Mr. Sturgell's comments were made during testimony regarding the FAA's New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign Project, during which he said America is "at a critical point with congestion and delays," and successfully addressing this problem "will require us to embrace new solutions..."

Implementing the redesign will take five years, Mr. Sturgell said, and will progress along four qualitatively different stages.  Its most innovative change appears to be the expansion of terminal airspace, both horizontally and vertically (up to 23,000 feet) that would permit ATC to use terminal separation rules (three miles apart versus five) as well as the more flexible terminal holding rules over this larger area.

"This 'terminalization' of the airspace also permits ATC to incorporate expanded departure gates and to separate arrival and departure flows in the NY/NJ/PHL metropolitan areas, increasing the efficiency of the airspace," Mr. Sturgell said. "Practically speaking, this means that ATC can sequence aircraft further out from the airports, where there is more space to do so. This makes the flow of air traffic more efficient, even when there's bad weather."

New Technology

Mr. Sturgell said reconfiguring this airspace also will enable the FAA to take several direct actions to take advantage of improved aircraft performance and emerging technologies.

He pointed to the use of CDAs (continuous descent approaches) which can both increase efficiency and reduce noise, and also to the use of RNAV (area navigation) and RNP, which can "collectively result in improved safety, access, predictability, and operational efficiency, as well as reduced environmental impacts."

To alleviate the concerns from some, Mr. Sturgell said the FAA is instituting several measures that include "a reduction in the number of dispersal headings (33 percent in the east configuration and 50 percent in the west configuration), as well as time of day restrictions to help minimize the impacts on the surrounding residents."

The Acting Administrator pointed to the 2005 airspace redesign in Florida as evidence of success for such initiatives, where he said the reduced operating cost, from fewer delays and reroutes, "total almost $35 million annually."

Philadelphia and NextGen

Because New York and Philadelphia airspace are so interdependent, technologies deployed in one airport in the region will have a beneficial "cascade" effect on the others, Mr. Sturgell said.  He told the Senators that Philadelphia is scheduled to have ADS-B ((automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast), coverage both in terminal airspace and on the airport surface by February 2010.

Mr. Sturgell also said the FAA has accelerated the installation of the ASDE-X (airport surface detection equipment - model x) at JFK by one year, meaning that it should be operational there by this August, and noted that additional surface surveillance for collaborative decision making is being developed and installed there at the same time.  ASDE-X is scheduled to be installed at Philadelphia in 2009, he said.

In addition, the FAA plans to expand its deployment of the TMA (traffic management advisor) tool in the New York area in July of this year to integrate arrivals and departures, and intends to demonstrate an incorporation of enhanced weather detection and prediction into TMA sometime this year as well. TMA aids controllers by calculating a specific time for aircraft to cross fixed points along terminal routes, while maintaining minimum safe separation.

Mr. Sturgell's complete testimony in available at: http://www.faa.gov/news/testimony/news_story.cfm?newsId=10215.  04-29-2008.

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