Enhancements to the FAA Ground-Delay Program Under Collaborative Decision Making

Abstract

When airport arrival capacity is reduced, it may not meet the demand placed by arriving aircraft. In these cases, the FAA enacts a ground-delay program (GDP) to delay flights before they depart from their origin airports, keeping traffic at an acceptable level for the affected arrival airport. However, air-traffic managers sometimes lacked current data and a common situational awareness when running a GDP. Working with the FAA and the airline community, Metron, Inc. and Volpe National Transportation Systems Center improved the process by using real-time data exchange between all users, new algorithms to assign flight-arrival slots, and new software at FAA facilities and airlines. This paper reflects the views and opinions of the authors and does not necessarily reflect that of the FAA.