NextGen and Recent FAA Outages

 

It seems that this blog assignment was perfectly timed due to the problems within the National Airspace System the past couple of weeks. There were two incidents this month that caused airports in Florida and across the country to ground flights due to computer glitches. The issue that occurred in Orlando on January 2^nd was caused by an En-route Automation Modernization System (ERAM) issue.  ERAM is a system at the air traffic centers that handles incoming traffic. Then on January 9^th, the most important system in the National Airspace System crashed. The Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) provides pilots with time critical data so they can plan accordingly for their flight. 

I’m confident that anyone interested in or involved in aviation understands that there are larger issues at play here.  Is the FAA broken and what is needed to get it back on track?  It’s a complex problem to unpack for sure. NextGen is the FAAs effort to modernize the National Airspace System.  “Through NextGen, FAA is addressing the impact of air traffic growth by increasing capacity and efficiency while simultaneously improving safety, reducing environmental impacts, and increasing user access to the NAS” (FAA, August 2020.) However, it feels like the NextGen project is struggling to be implemented at the FAA.  “In October, for example, the FAA said it was working to end a long-ridiculed, decades-old practice of air traffic controllers using paper flight strips to keep track of aircraft. But adopting the change at 49 major airports will take the FAA until late 2029” (Shepardson, 2023). 

The safety of the airspace system appears to be in the hands of a very bureaucratic system that can’t get out of their own way.

 

 

 

NBC News. (2023, January 12). FAA outage: Damaged database file took down safety system, grounding flights. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/faa-computer-outage-live-updates-flights-us-affected-rcna65248

NextGen and Performance-Based Navigation. (n.d.). Federal Aviation Administration. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/nextgen-and-performance-based-navigation

Shepardson, D. (2023, January 12). FAA has struggled to modernize computer, air traffic operations. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/faa-has-struggled-modernize-computer-air-traffic-operations-2023-01-12/