Air Traffic Control

In 1994, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received requests from Members of Congress, air traffic controllers, and local citizens to install an airport surveillance radar at the Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City, Michigan, which is in the upper northwest corner of the state. These groups anticipated that having a radar at the airport would help improve safety and reduce aircraft delays. However, FAA's benefit-cost studies showed that the airport did not qualify for a radar, and the airport has yet to receive this equipment. This report reviews the benefit-cost studies that FAA did for the Cherry Capital Airport in 1994, 1996, and 1997. GAO discusses (1) FAA's decision-making process for installing surveillance radars at airports; (2) the factors, including costs, benefits, and air traffic projections, that FAA considered when conducting the studies; (3) the impact that air traffic projections developed by other sources would have had on the results of the 1997 study; (4) the steps that FAA has taken to address safety concerns at the airport; and (5) FAA's plans to replace surveillance radars at airports with fewer total air traffic operations than those at the Cherry Capital Airport.

GAO noted that: (1) FAA uses a multifaceted process to determine which airports should get surveillance radars; (2) this process includes completing a benefit-cost study, assessing an airport's need for a surveillance radar compared with the needs of other airports, and determining the availability of radar equipment or funds to purchase needed radar equipment; (3) in its 1994 benefit-cost study for the Cherry Capital Airport, FAA officials overstated the projected air traffic growth; (4) this overstated growth was the primary reason FAA concluded that the airport met its cost-effectiveness criteria; (5) moreover, in 1994, FAA officials did not follow the agency's decisionmaking process and prematurely concluded that the Cherry Capital Airport qualified for a surveillance radar; (6) when conducting the 1994, 1996, and 1997 benefit-cost studies, FAA considered the potential efficiency and safety benefits; (7) with the higher growth rate used in the 1994 study, the benefits exceeded the costs of installing a surveillance radar, so the Cherry Capital Airport met FAA's cost-effectiveness criteria; but with the lower growth rate used in the 1996 and 1997 studies, it did not qualify; (8) the air traffic projections were the most critical factors influencing the results of FAA's benefit-cost studies; (9) to address the safety concerns, FAA installed an automated display and information system at the Cherry Capital Airport in 1997; (10) while the controllers told GAO that the equipment can help them better manage air traffic and improve safety, they have difficulty using it because information on aircraft identification and altitude is sometimes unreadable on the display monitor; (11) beginning in 1999, FAA plans to replace the existing surveillance radars installed in the 1960s and 1970s at 101 airports as part of its efforts to modernize its air traffic control system; (12) seventy-five of the 101 airports had fewer total air traffic operations in 1996 than the Cherry Capital Airport did; (13) although FAA conducts benefit-cost studies and uses air traffic operations as a basis for determining the cost-effectiveness of installing surveillance radars at airports, agency officials did not conduct similar studies to determine whether it would be cost-effective to replace existing radars at the 101 airports or to prioritize the replacement of the radars; and (14) FAA has no plans to undertake such efforts because agency officials believe that it would be very difficult to discontinue radar operations at an airport because of the public's perception that safety would be reduced.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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