Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Deciding on a better way to navigate: Federal Aviation Administration needs to move new system forward

Outdated policies and procedures, insufficient training and a lack of air traffic automation are the reasons Federal Aviation Administration officials have given for airports such as John F. Kennedy not using an updated navigation system more than 1 percent of the time.

Information collected recently from the Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Aviation Administration in 2013 shows that the airport used the system for only used the new system for 307 of the 29,907 flights that approached JFK between September 2012 and August 2013.

Matthew Hampton, in the Office of Inspector General’s assistant inspector for aviation audits recommended that to get airports to use what is called performance-based navigation that seeks to decrease aircraft noise when planes fly over residential communities and conserve fuel by using the optimal flight path the FAA must dismantle barriers, expedite its implementation process, complete an action plan with deadlines, establish requirements and schedules to ensure future funding requests, and measure that progress.

H. Clayton Foushee, the director of the Office of Audit and Evaluation for the FAA, agreed with all of Hampton’s recommendations. “We will identify work already in progress, and work that may already be completed,” he said in a response statement to Hampton on June 17. “Upon completion of this review, we will determine which actions can be feasibly implemented and document those in the form of an action plan that includes milestones and identifies and assigns responsible and accountable offices and personnel. We will deliver the action plan by December 31, 2014.”

The current system for landing procedures helps in shortening the amount of time planes spend on the runway but isn’t working to address the aircraft noise issues, said Kendall Lampkin, the executive director of the Town-Village Aircraft Safety and Noise Abatement Committee.

Read more here:  http://www.liherald.com


Courtesy Office of the Inspector General/FAA 
Reducing airplane noise and conserving fuel is the goal of the Federal Aviation Administration’s updated system that seeks to have aircraft flying on an optimal flight path.

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