Next Generation Air Transportation System
FAA Faces Challenges in Responding to Task Force Recommendations Gao ID: GAO-10-188T October 28, 2009On September 9, 2009, the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Midterm Implementation Task Force (Task Force) issued its final report and recommendations. The Task Force was to reach a consensus on the operational improvements to the air transportation system that should be implemented between now and 2018. Its recommendations call for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop improvements that allow operators to take advantage of equipment that has been widely deployed or is available for installation in existing aircraft. FAA is now considering how to modify its existing plans and programs in response to the Task Force's recommendations and must do so in a way that retains safety as the highest priority. This testimony highlights the NextGen challenges previously identified by GAO and others that affect FAA's response to the Task Force's recommendations. GAO groups these challenges into three areas: (1) directing resources and addressing environmental issues, (2) adjusting its culture and business practices, and (3) developing and implementing options to encourage airlines and general aviation to equip aircraft with new technologies. GAO's testimony updates prior GAO work with interviews with agency officials and industry stakeholders and includes an analysis of the Task Force report.
Directing resources and addressing environmental issues. Allocating resources for advanced navigational procedures and airspace redesign requires FAA to balance benefits to operators against resource limits and other challenges to the timely implementation of NextGen. Procedures that allow more direct flights--versus those that overlay existing routes--and redesigned airspace in congested metropolitan areas can save operators time, fuel, and costs, and reduce congestion, delays, and emissions. However, FAA does not have the capacity to expedite progress towards its current procedure development targets. While FAA has begun to explore the use of the private sector to help develop procedures, issues related to public use of these procedures and oversight of developers remain. In addition, required environmental reviews can be lengthy, especially when planned changes in noise patterns create community concerns during reviews. Challenges to FAA include deciding whether to start in more or less complex metropolitan areas, and finding ways to expedite the environmental review process and proactively ameliorate community concerns. Changing FAA's culture and business practices. According to stakeholders and Task Force members, and as GAO has previously reported, FAA faces cultural and organizational challenges in implementing NextGen capabilities. Whereas FAA's culture and organization formerly supported the acquisition of individual air traffic control systems, FAA will now have to integrate and coordinate activities across multiple lines of business, as well as reprioritize some of its plans and programs, to implement near-term and midterm capabilities. FAA is currently analyzing what changes may be required to respond to the recommendations. StreamliningFAA's certification, operational approval, and procedure design processes, as a prior task force recommended, will also be essential for timely implementation. And sustaining a high level of involvement and collaboration with stakeholders--including operators, air traffic controllers, and others--will also be necessary to ensure progress. Developing and implementing options to encourage equipage. The Task Force focused on making better use of equipment that has already been widely deployed in aircraft, but as NextGen progresses, new equipment will have to be installed to implement future capabilities and FAA may have to offer incentives for operators to accelerate their installation of equipment that may not yield an immediate return on investment. While FAA could mandate equipage, mandates take time to implement and can impose costs, risks, and other disincentives on operators that discourage early investment in equipment. The Task Force identified several options to encourage equipage, including offering operational or financial benefits to early equippers. Challenges to implementing these options include defining how operational incentives would work in practice, designing financial incentives so as not to displace private investment that would otherwise occur, and targeting incentives where benefits are greatest.
GAO-10-188T, Next Generation Air Transportation System: FAA Faces Challenges in Responding to Task Force Recommendations
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Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, House of Representatives:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m. EDT:
October 28, 2009:
Next Generation Air Transportation System:
FAA Faces Challenges in Responding to Task Force Recommendations:
Statement of Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D.
Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues:
GAO-10-188T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-10-188T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of
Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
On September 9, 2009, the Next Generation Air Transportation System
(NextGen) Midterm Implementation Task Force (Task Force) issued its
final report and recommendations. The Task Force was to reach a
consensus on the operational improvements to the air transportation
system that should be implemented between now and 2018. Its
recommendations call for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to
develop improvements that allow operators to take advantage of
equipment that has been widely deployed or is available for
installation in existing aircraft. FAA is now considering how to modify
its existing plans and programs in response to the Task Force‘s
recommendations and must do so in a way that retains safety as the
highest priority.
This testimony highlights the NextGen challenges previously identified
by GAO and others that affect FAA‘s response to the Task Force‘s
recommendations. GAO groups these challenges into three areas: (1)
directing resources and addressing environmental issues, (2) adjusting
its culture and business practices, and (3) developing and implementing
options to encourage airlines and general aviation to equip aircraft
with new technologies. GAO‘s testimony updates prior GAO work with
interviews with agency officials and industry stakeholders and includes
an analysis of the Task Force report.
What GAO Found:
Directing resources and addressing environmental issues. Allocating
resources for advanced navigational procedures and airspace redesign
requires FAA to balance benefits to operators against resource limits
and other challenges to the timely implementation of NextGen.
Procedures that allow more direct flights”versus those that overlay
existing routes”and redesigned airspace in congested metropolitan areas
can save operators time, fuel, and costs, and reduce congestion,
delays, and emissions. However, FAA does not have the capacity to
expedite progress towards its current procedure development targets.
While FAA has begun to explore the use of the private sector to help
develop procedures, issues related to public use of these procedures
and oversight of developers remain. In addition, required environmental
reviews can be lengthy, especially when planned changes in noise
patterns create community concerns during reviews. Challenges to FAA
include deciding whether to start in more or less complex metropolitan
areas, and finding ways to expedite the environmental review process
and proactively ameliorate community concerns.
Changing FAA‘s culture and business practices. According to
stakeholders and Task Force members, and as GAO has previously
reported, FAA faces cultural and organizational challenges in
implementing NextGen capabilities. Whereas FAA‘s culture and
organization formerly supported the acquisition of individual air
traffic control systems, FAA will now have to integrate and coordinate
activities across multiple lines of business, as well as reprioritize
some of its plans and programs, to implement near-term and midterm
capabilities. FAA is currently analyzing what changes may be required
to respond to the recommendations. Streamlining FAA‘s certification,
operational approval, and procedure design processes, as a prior task
force recommended, will also be essential for timely implementation.
And sustaining a high level of involvement and collaboration with
stakeholders”including operators, air traffic controllers, and others”
will also be necessary to ensure progress.
Developing and implementing options to encourage equipage. The Task
Force focused on making better use of equipment that has already been
widely deployed in aircraft, but as NextGen progresses, new equipment
will have to be installed to implement future capabilities and FAA may
have to offer incentives for operators to accelerate their installation
of equipment that may not yield an immediate return on investment.
While FAA could mandate equipage, mandates take time to implement and
can impose costs, risks, and other disincentives on operators that
discourage early investment in equipment. The Task Force identified
several options to encourage equipage, including offering operational
or financial benefits to early equippers. Challenges to implementing
these options include defining how operational incentives would work in
practice, designing financial incentives so as not to displace private
investment that would otherwise occur, and targeting incentives where
benefits are greatest.
To view the full product, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-188T]. For more
information, contact Gerald L. Dillingham at (202) 512-2834 or
dillinghamg@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today on efforts to
transform the nation's current air traffic control (ATC) system to the
Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). Today's air
transportation system is straining to meet current demands. Thus far in
2009 more than one in five airline flights have been delayed or
canceled. These problems have occurred even though air traffic has
declined during the current recession, and they are expected to worsen
as the economy recovers and air traffic increases. NextGen improvements
include new integrated systems, procedures, aircraft performance
capabilities, and supporting infrastructure needed for a performance-
based air transportation system that uses satellite-based surveillance
and navigation and network-centric operations. These improvements are
intended to improve the efficiency and capacity of the air
transportation system while maintaining its safety so that it can
accommodate this anticipated future growth. NextGen improvements have
been planned over a long horizon. The initial planning for NextGen
focused on implementing improvements through 2025, but more recently
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has emphasized improvements
that can be implemented in the midterm, defined as between 2012 and
2018. Additionally, many stakeholders have concluded that more can and
must be done in the near term--generally thought of as between now and
2012--to address inefficiencies and delays in the system. In their
view, it is time to take full advantage of existing technologies and
capabilities rather than waiting for new systems to be deployed and for
aircraft to be equipped with new technology.
Recognizing the importance of near-term and midterm solutions, FAA
requested that RTCA, Inc.--a private, not-for-profit corporation that
develops consensus-based recommendations on communications, navigation,
surveillance, and air traffic management system issues-- create a
NextGen Midterm Implementation Task Force (referred to in this
statement as the Task Force) to reach consensus within the aviation
community on the operational improvements that can be implemented
between now and 2018. The Task Force focused on maximizing benefits in
the near term, and paid particular attention to aligning its
recommendations with how aircraft operators decide to invest in
aircraft equipment. On September 9, 2009, the Task Force issued its
final report, which contained a list of recommendations to implement
operational capabilities in five key areas--surface operations, runway
access, congestion relief in metropolitan areas, cruise operations, and
access to certain airspace--and two cross-cutting areas--data
communication applications and integrated air traffic management. The
Task Force also made four overarching recommendations to (1) work
toward closer adherence to current separation standards (criteria for
spacing between aircraft), (2) establish incentives that will ensure a
return on investment for those wishing to install new technology and
equipment on aircraft, (3) streamline the operational approval process
that ensures the safety of equipment and the training of those that use
the equipment in the national airspace system, and (4) follow up on and
track recommendations to ensure their implementation. These
recommendations represent a consensus view from industry on how to move
forward with NextGen. The Task Force includes representation from the
four major operating communities--airlines, business aviation, general
aviation, and the military--as well as participation from controllers,
airports, avionics and aircraft manufacturers, and other key
stakeholders. FAA is now considering how it will modify its NextGen
Implementation Plan in response to the Task Force's recommendations and
do so in a way that retains safety as the highest priority. Our work
over the last few months has identified a number of findings similar to
those the Task Force reported.[Footnote 1]
My testimony today highlights challenges previously identified by
GAO[Footnote 2] and others that affect FAA's response to the Task
Force's recommendations. We group these challenges into three areas:
(1) directing resources and addressing environmental issues to ensure
the timely implementation of capabilities, (2) adjusting FAA's culture
and business practices to support the implementation of operational
improvements, and (3) developing and implementing cost-effective
options to encourage airlines and general aviation operators to equip
their aircraft with NextGen technologies. My statement is based on
recent related GAO reports and testimonies updated with more recent FAA
data, our analysis of the Task Force report, and our discussions with
selected senior FAA officials and aviation industry stakeholders,
including airlines, general aviation stakeholders, avionics industry
representatives, and the National Air Traffic Controller Association
(NATCA). We discussed this testimony with FAA and received technical
comments from RTCA, which we incorporated as appropriate. Our work was
conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the work to
obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis
for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We
believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
FAA Faces Challenges in Directing Resources and Addressing
Environmental Issues to Ensure Timely Implementation:
Developing Navigation Procedures with Significant Benefits in a Timely
Manner:
Developing Area Navigation (RNAV) and Required Navigation Performance
(RNP) procedures,[Footnote 3] often called performance-based navigation
procedures,[Footnote 4] with significant benefits is one way to
leverage existing technology in the near term and provide immediate
benefits to industry, but developing these procedures expeditiously
will be a challenge for FAA. According to the Task Force, developing
RNAV and RNP procedures could be a key part of relieving current
congestion and delays at major metropolitan airports. Benefits of RNAV
and RNP can also include reduced fuel usage, reduced carbon emissions,
reduced noise, shorter flights, fewer delays, less congestion, and
improved safety. For example, Southwest Airlines demonstration flights
show that RNP can reduce fuel burn and carbon dioxide emissions by as
much as 6 percent per flight. In 2008, Alaska Airlines estimated that
it used RNP procedures 12,308 times and saved 1.5 million gallons of
fuel, thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 17,000
metric tons and operating costs by $17 million. Even greater benefits
can be realized when the procedures are part of a comprehensive
airspace redesign that includes more efficient flight paths, and are
not simply overlays of historical aircraft flight paths.[Footnote 5]
Deriving benefits from RNAV and RNP technology depends less on
equipping aircraft with the technology required to fly these
procedures, than on developing procedures with significant benefits in
a timely manner. MITRE Corporation,[Footnote 6] which collects and
retains data on equipage levels for the existing fleet, estimates that
for aircraft in commercial operations in 2009, equipage rates are more
than 90 percent for RNAV, more than 60 percent for RNP, and more than
40 percent for RNP equipment that allows for higher levels of
precision. These figures indicate that the equipment necessary to take
advantage of RNAV and RNP technology is already substantially deployed.
However, comparatively few procedures have been developed for airlines
to use the equipment. Since 2004 FAA has published 305 RNAV procedures,
206 RNAV routes, and 192 RNP approaches, but much remains to be done
(see table 1). FAA believes that it can annually develop about 50 RNAV
and RNP procedures, 50 RNAV routes, and 50 RNP approaches. At this pace
of development, a simple calculation suggests that it would require
decades to complete the thousands of procedures currently targeted for
development.
Table 1: Estimate of the Number of Procedures Needed for Performance-
Based Navigation in the National Airspace System:
Procedure type: RNAV and RNP procedures (arrivals and departures);
Estimated number of procedures completed (end of fiscal year 2009):
305;
Number of procedures targeted for development: 2,000 to 4,000.
Procedure type: RNAV/RNP routes;
Estimated number of procedures completed (end of fiscal year 2009):
206;
Number of procedures targeted for development: 800 to1,200.
Procedure type: RNP approaches;
Estimated number of procedures completed (end of fiscal year 2009):
192;
Number of procedures targeted for development: 1,000 to 2,000.
Source: FAA.
[End of table]
The Task Force report suggests that FAA and industry create joint teams
to focus on performance-based navigations issues at certain locations
and to prioritize procedures for development at these locations. Such
an effort would likely lead to changes in FAA's current development
targets. Nonetheless, accelerating the development of procedures would
require a shift in FAA's resources, or additional human resources and
expertise. In addition to FAA, numerous companies have expertise and
experience to develop procedures and are doing this work for air
navigation service providers around the world. FAA recognizes the
potential benefits of involving these private companies and has taken
steps to use them more. FAA recently authorized one such company,
Naverus, which has a long history of expertise in procedure
development, to validate public and private flight procedures that the
company has developed for the U.S. market. This authorization will
allow the company to validate performance-based navigation flight
procedures from beginning to end. While private sector development may
be one way to accelerate procedure development, issues related to FAA's
capacity to approve these procedures remain, according to some
stakeholders. In addition, questions such as who can use the procedures
and how oversight of third-party developers is to be provided must also
be resolved.
While FAA tracks the number of navigation procedures completed,
stakeholders have told us that developing procedures with significant
benefits is more important than developing a specific number of
procedures. For example, according to Southwest Airlines, FAA has
developed 69 RNP procedures for the routes it flies, 6 which they view
as useful to the airline because of the resulting reduction in flight
miles or emissions. Some stakeholders have suggested that FAA use other
metrics that better capture benefits to industry from advanced
procedures, such as fuel savings, time savings, or mileage savings,
which could lead to more of a focus on the development of procedures
that maximize these benefits. The Task Force report identified the
establishment of performance metrics as an important part of following
up on and tracking the implementation its recommendations, and we have
ongoing work for this committee reviewing FAA's performance metrics
related to this and other aspects of NextGen development.
Completing Timely Environmental Reviews and Addressing Local Concerns:
As FAA develops new procedures to make more efficient use of airspace
in congested metropolitan areas, it will be challenged to complete the
necessary environmental reviews quickly and address local concerns
about the development of new procedures and airspace redesign. Anytime
an airspace redesign or a new procedure changes the noise footprint
around an airport, an environmental review is initiated under the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Under NEPA, varying levels of
environmental review must be completed depending on the extent to which
FAA deems its actions to have a significant environmental impact. There
are three possible levels:
1. Categorical exclusion determination. Under a categorical exclusion,
an undertaking may be excluded from a detailed environmental review if
it meets certain criteria and a federal agency has previously
determined that the undertaking will have no significant environmental
impact.
2. Environmental assessment/finding of no significant impact (EA/
FONSI). A federal agency prepares a written environmental assessment
(EA) to determine whether or not a federal undertaking would
significantly affect the environment. If the answer is no, the agency
issues a finding of no significant impact (FONSI).
3. Environmental impact statement (EIS). If the agency determines while
preparing the EA that the environmental consequences of a proposed
federal undertaking may be significant, an EIS is prepared. An EIS is a
more detailed evaluation of the proposed action and alternatives.
The more extensive the analysis required, the longer the process can
take. A full EIS can take several years to complete. EAs and
categorical exclusions, by contrast, take less time and resources to
complete. Because NEPA does not allow consideration of the net impact
of an action such as the introduction of new procedures or broader
airspace redesign--which may increase noise in some areas but increase
capacity at an airport and reduce noise and emissions overall--these
actions can often result in extensive and time-consuming reviews. FAA
is exploring situations in which it might be more appropriate to use a
categorical exclusion or an EA instead of an EIS. The 2009 FAA
reauthorization legislation includes language that may expedite the
environmental review process. For example, the legislative proposal
would allow airport operators to use grant funds for environmental
reviews of proposals to implement flight procedures. The proposal would
also allow project sponsors to provide FAA with funds to hire
additional staff as necessary to expedite completion of the
environmental review necessary to implement flight procedures.
Because airspace redesign and new procedures can change noise patterns,
there is the potential for community concerns and legal challenges to
the environmental review process, which can further delay efforts to
use the airspace more efficiently. For example, redesign has been
particularly controversial in the New York, New Jersey, and
Philadelphia areas.[Footnote 7] It took nearly 7 years to complete the
New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia areas' airspace redesign, and
despite an FAA Record of Decision in September 2007, the project still
faces a number of legal challenges as well as challenges related to
implementation complexities. These difficulties suggest that it may be
desirable to begin redesign efforts in less complex metropolitan areas.
How to prioritize airspace redesign efforts will be a key decision that
FAA and stakeholders will need to make in the near future. Regardless
of where FAA begins, if airspace design is to help reduce delays in
congested airspace in the near term or midterm, the Task Force report
concluded that FAA must begin the environmental review processes now.
FAA Faces Challenges in Changing Its Culture and Business Practices in
Order to Respond Effectively to the Task Force's Recommendations:
Changing from an Organization and Culture Focused on System Acquisition
to an Emphasis on Integration and Coordination:
According to stakeholders and Task Force members, and as we have
previously reported, FAA faces organizational and cultural challenges
in implementing NextGen operational capabilities.[Footnote 8] FAA has
traditionally developed and acquired new systems through its
acquisition process. However, most NextGen technologies and
capabilities, such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-
B),[Footnote 9] rely on components in the aircraft, on the ground, and
in space for their use. They also require controllers and pilots to be
trained and flight procedures to be developed in order to maximize
their benefits. Different offices within FAA--including its Aircraft
Certification Service, Flight Standards Service, and Air Traffic
Organization (ATO),[Footnote 10] among others--are responsible for
ensuring the completion of all the activities required to maximize the
use of a technology or capability. While FAA has recently made
organizational changes to address integration issues, several
stakeholders told us, and our previous and ongoing work suggests, that
FAA's structure and culture continues to hamper its ability to ensure
that all the actions necessary to maximize use of a technology or
capability in the national airspace system are completed efficiently.
For example, stakeholders identified coordination and integration as
particular challenges to implementing operational capabilities in the
surface operations area identified by the Task Force. Implementing
capabilities in this area will require greater coordination among
offices within ATO, airport operators, pilots, and controllers, among
others.
Reprioritizing or Changing Some Aspects of Plans and Programs to
Implement the Task Force's Recommendations:
While many of the operational improvements identified by the Task Force
align with FAA's current plans, a senior FAA official indicated that in
several instances, FAA may need to adjust its plans, budgets, and
priorities as it decides how it will respond to the Task Force's
recommendations. According to this senior FAA official, potential
budgetary changes are already being identified, and a comprehensive
analysis of what additional changes to existing plans would be
necessary to respond to the recommendations is underway. Until this
analysis is completed, it is difficult to know exactly what changes FAA
would need to make to implement the Task Force's recommendations. In
some cases, the Task Force's recommendations, if accepted and fully
implemented, will require altering the course of initiatives that are
already underway or programs that are being implemented. For example, a
recommendation to expand surveillance of airspace around certain
general aviation airports may require an increase in the scope of the
current ADS-B program, which does not cover those areas. In addition,
recommendations to expand information sharing to improve surface
situational awareness and traffic management could affect the current
plans for FAA programs such as System-Wide Information Management
(SWIM),[Footnote 11] according to one stakeholder. Responding to the
Task Force's recommendations will require a willingness to change and
reprioritize current plans and programs.
Streamlining Certification, Operational Approval, and Procedure Design
Processes:
Inefficiencies in FAA's certification,[Footnote 12] operational
approval,[Footnote 13] and procedure design processes constitute
another challenge to delivering near-term benefits to stakeholders,
instilling confidence in FAA plans, and investing in new equipment. Our
prior work has identified this issue and concluded that the time
required to complete such activities will have to be balanced against
the need to ensure reliability and safety of procedures and systems
before they are used in the national airspace system.[Footnote 14]
Stakeholders, including airlines and general aviation groups, including
one that represents avionics manufacturers, as well as the Task Force,
have said that these processes take too long and impose costs on
industry that discourage the stakeholders from investing in NextGen
aircraft equipment. For example, the President of GE Aviation Systems
recently testified, and other stakeholders have told us, that the
process of approving and deploying RNP navigation procedures remains
extremely slow and that FAA's review and approval of a given original
RNP design often takes years. A 1999 RTCA task force also identified a
need to streamline the certification and operational approval processes
and made a number of recommendations to FAA. According to a senior FAA
official, while FAA has made progress in addressing many of these
recommendations, it has yet to take action on others and some
challenges remain. For example, the NextGen Task Force reports that FAA
aircraft certification offices face resource issues and applicants for
many required installation approvals wait about 6 months until FAA
engineers are available to oversee their project. Other suggestions to
streamline the equipment certification process include increasing
staffing at FAA's certification offices to process applications and
having NextGen-specific equipment certification processes that allow
quicker approvals of equipment.
Effectively Engaging Stakeholders:
Another challenge for FAA will be to continue involving stakeholders--
-including industry and controllers, as well as others as appropriate-
-in implementation and key decisions related to the Task Force's
recommendations. The Task Force recommends, and we agree, that FAA and
industry establish institutional mechanisms to facilitate continued
transparency and collaboration in planning and implementing actions to
address the Task Force's recommendations, particularly as these actions
lead to changes in the NextGen Implementation Plan. The Task Force
recommended the creation of a NextGen Implementation Workgroup under
the RTCA Air Traffic Management Advisory Committee (ATMAC). An FAA
official indicated that several mechanisms, including a variety of
advisory boards and working groups, currently exist and can also be
used to improve collaboration among stakeholders. We have previously
reported that the roles of these various groups have become somewhat
unclear, even to stakeholders involved in them.[Footnote 15] FAA will
need to work with industry and key stakeholders to come to agreement on
how, where, and when stakeholders will be involved. Continued
transparency and collaboration are key to developing industry's trust
that FAA is making changes to implement NextGen.
In addition, FAA will need to continue to work toward changing the
nature of its relationship with controllers and the controllers' union
to create more effective engagement and collaboration. In September
2009, FAA and NATCA signed a new 3-year contract. FAA views the new
contract as a framework for helping meet the challenges of implementing
NextGen. NATCA states that the contract starts a process to discuss
ways for getting NATCA representatives involved in all NextGen-related
issues. One particular change that would affect the relationship
between controllers and FAA, as well as facilitate NextGen's
implementation, would be to modify the incentives that influence how
controllers apply FAA's aircraft separation standards. More
specifically, a change that encouraged controllers to decrease the
separation between aircraft during landing or takeoff would improve
system capacity and efficiency and was one of the Task Force's
overarching recommendations. Currently, according to NATCA, controllers
are encouraged to increase the separation between aircraft, because
they are penalized if separation thresholds are crossed. Moreover,
according to MITRE, controllers often separate aircraft by more than
the prescribed minimum distances to address any uncertainty about the
actual positions of aircraft as well as to reduce the likelihood of
violating the required separation distances. NextGen technologies and
procedures can provide controllers with more precise information about
the locations of aircraft and allow for aircraft to operate closer to
one another. Recent changes to the Operational Error program[Footnote
16] and the Air Traffic Safety Action Program (ATSAP)[Footnote 17]
program are aimed at establishing a nonpunitive safety reporting
program and are a positive first step towards changing the culture and
establishing a more collaborative relationship with controllers.
FAA Faces Challenges to Provide Incentives to Accelerate New Equipage
as NextGen Progresses:
The Task Force's focus was on making better use of the equipment that
has already been installed or is available for installation. However,
as NextGen progresses and as the Task Force's recommendations are
implemented, operators will need to acquire additional equipment to
take full advantage of the benefits of NextGen. In some cases the
federal government may deem financial or other incentives desirable to
speed the deployment of new equipment. Appropriate incentives will
depend on the technology and the potential for an adequate and timely
return on investment. A discussion of options to accelerate equipage
discussed in our prior work and identified by the Task Force
follows.[Footnote 18]
Mandating Equipage:
The first option is mandating the installation of equipment.
Traditionally, FAA mandates the equipage of aircraft for safety
improvements and provides several years for operators to comply.
According to academic researchers, among these mandated safety
improvements are ground proximity warning sensors, extended ground
proximity warning sensors, and traffic collision and avoidance
systems.[Footnote 19] Mandates can be effective because they force
operators to equip even when there may not be clear and timely benefits
to operators that justify the cost of equipping. In the NextGen
context, FAA has proposed a rule that mandates equipage with ADS-B
Out[Footnote 20] for affected aircraft by 2020. However, operators may
not equip until the deadline for compliance is near because the cost of
early investment in new technologies is often high and the return on
investment limited. This is particularly true for general aviation
operators who typically do not fly enough to recoup a large investment
in new aircraft equipment. According to a general aviation stakeholder,
general aviation operators typically fly hundreds of flight hours a
year, while scheduled airlines fly thousands a year. Our prior work has
identified a variety of other disincentives to early
investment.[Footnote 21] These disincentives include the possibility
that a technology may not work as intended, may not provide any
operational benefits until a certain percentage of all aircraft are
equipped, or may become obsolete because a better technology is
available. Other risks to early investors include potential changes in
the proposed standards or requirements for the technology, later
reductions in the price of technologies and installations, or the risk
that FAA may not implement the requisite ground infrastructure and
procedures to provide operators with benefits that would justify their
costs to equip. Moreover, because equipage mandates are designed to
cover a broad range of users in a single action, they may lead to
objections and lobbying from users, such as general aviation operators,
on whom significant costs are imposed.
Making the Best Use of Equipment that Is Widely Deployed:
A second option to accelerate equipage is to develop operational
improvements that make use of equipment that is already widely deployed
to produce benefits for operators to justify the costs of equipage. The
Task Force's recommendations are geared toward this option. A large
part of the fleet is equipped with technologies that operators cannot
fully use until FAA has implemented operational improvements. If FAA
can implement such improvements for operators that have this equipment,
it could provide a return on investment for them and create a financial
incentive for others to equip. But because FAA has not always taken the
actions needed for operators to take full advantage of investments in
equipage, such as for Controller Pilot Data Link
Communications,[Footnote 22] some industry stakeholders question
whether FAA will now follow through with the tasks required to allow
operators to achieve the full benefit of their investment in a timely
manner. Early success in implementing some of the Task Force's near-
term recommendations will help build trust between FAA and operators
that FAA will provide operational improvements that allow operators to
take advantage of the required equipment and realize benefits.
Providing Operational Incentives to Equip:
A third option proposed by FAA and known as "best equipped, best
served" requires that FAA ensure some form of operational benefit for
operators that do equip, such as preferred airspace, routings, or
runway access, which can save time or fuel. If early equippers get a
clear competitive advantage, other operators may be encouraged to
follow their example, providing further incentive for all operators to
fully equip their fleets. An advantage of pursuing this option is that
no federal financial incentives are required for equipage, so costs to
the federal government are generally lower. However, designing such
incentives and analyzing how they will work in practice is a major
challenge and has only begun to move forward. For example, giving a
better-equipped aircraft preference over lesser-equipped aircraft to
land or depart may increase delays and holding patterns for the lesser-
equipped aircraft, potentially increasing delays and fuel usage
overall, and resulting in lower systemwide benefits. Furthermore,
according to airline stakeholders, the best equipped, best served
option will require controllers to accept procedures that they have
expressed safety concerns about in the past. Mechanisms will also have
to be created so that controllers know which aircraft are best
equipped, and these mechanisms cannot adversely affect controller
workload or safety. The Task Force's report does not address the
practical implications of how a best equipped, best served option would
work, but recommends that the option be explored in the context of
specific operational capabilities and locations.
Providing Financial Incentives:
A fourth option is to provide financial incentives where operators do
not have a clear and timely return on investment for equipping
aircraft. Financial incentives can accelerate investment in equipment,
which, in turn, can accelerate the operational and public benefits
expected from implementing additional capabilities. According to the
Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace
Industry,[Footnote 23] one argument for some form of federal financial
assistance is that the total cost to the federal government of fully
financing the communication, navigation, and other airborne equipment
required for more efficient operations would be less than the costs to
the economy of system delays and inefficiencies that new equipment
would help address. In previous work, we concluded that the federal
government's sharing of costs is most justifiable when there are
adequate aggregate net benefits to be realized through equipage, but
those who need to make the investments in the equipment do not accrue
enough benefits themselves to justify their individual
investments.[Footnote 24]
Financial assistance can come in a variety of forms including grants,
cost-sharing arrangements, loans, and tax incentives. As we have
previously reported, prudent use of taxpayer dollars is always
important; therefore, financial incentives should be applied carefully
and in accordance with key principles.[Footnote 25] For example,
mechanisms for financial assistance should be designed so as to
effectively target parts of the fleet and geographical locations where
benefits are deemed to be greatest, avoid unnecessarily equipping
aircraft (e.g., those that are about to be retired), and not displace
private investment that would otherwise occur. Furthermore, it is
preferable that the mechanism used for federal financial assistance
result in minimizing the use of government resources (e.g., some
mechanisms may cost the government more to implement or place the
government at greater risk than others). We also reported that, of the
various forms of assistance available to the federal government, tax
incentives have several disadvantages because (1) many scheduled
airlines may not have any tax liability that tax credits could be used
immediately to offset, (2) a tax credit would provide a more valuable
subsidy for carriers that are currently profitable than for those that
are not, and (3) using the tax system to provide a financial incentive
can impose an administrative burden on the Internal Revenue Service.
One financing option proposed by the Task Force to encourage the
purchase of aircraft equipment is the use of equipage banks, which
provide federal loans to operators to equip their aircraft. Recent
legislation proposes that FAA establish a pilot program that would
permit the agency to work with up to five states to establish ADS-B
equipage banks for making loans to help facilitate aircraft equipage
locally. The Task Force suggests that equipage banks could be used to
provide funds for operators to equip with a NextGen technology when
there may not be a benefit or return on investment for doing so. By
providing for a variety of NextGen technologies, an equipage bank can
avoid penalizing those who have already invested in a particular
NextGen technology. The federal government has used a similar financing
option in the past to fund other infrastructure projects including
highway improvements.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. This concludes my prepared statement. I would
be pleased to answer any questions that you or Members of the
Subcommittee may have at this time.
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
For further information on this testimony, please contact Dr. Gerald L.
Dillingham at (202) 512-2834 or dillinghamg@gao.gov. Individuals making
key contributions to this testimony include Andrew Von Ah (Assistant
Director), Amy Abramowitz, Kieran McCarthy, Kevin Egan, Bess
Eisenstadt, and Bert Japikse.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] This work is part of a comprehensive review and monitoring effort
that GAO is undertaking for the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee, House Science and Technology Committee, and Senate Commerce,
Science, and Transportation Committee. The work includes a number of
planned reviews related to the ongoing implementation of NextGen.
[2] See GAO, Responses to Questions for the Record: March 18, 2009,
Hearing on ATC Modernization: Near-Term Achievable Goals, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-718R], (Washington, D.C.: May
20, 2009); GAO, Next Generation Air Transportation System: Status of
Transformation and Issues Associated with Midterm Implementation of
Capabilities, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-
479T] (Washington D.C.:, Mar. 18, 2009); and GAO, Next Generation Air
Transportation System: Status of Systems Acquisition and the Transition
to the Next Generation Air Transportation System, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-1078] (Washington, D.C.: Sept.
11, 2008).
[3] RNAV enables aircraft to fly on any path within coverage of ground-
or space-based navigation aids, permitting more access and flexibility
for point-to-point operations. RNP, like RNAV, enables aircraft to fly
on any path within coverage of ground-or space-based navigation aids,
but also includes an onboard performance monitoring capability. RNP
also enables closer en route spacing without intervention by air
traffic control and permits more precise and consistent arrivals and
departures.
[4] A flight procedure is the plan of operations that an aircraft must
follow to depart or land in the vicinity of an airport.
[5] FAA has produced overlay procedures at the request of industry.
Overlay procedures can produce benefits by making those procedures more
precise, but industry maintains that benefits of overlays have been
minimal.
[6] MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit organization chartered to
work in the public interest. MITRE manages four Federally Funded
Research and Development Centers, including one for FAA. MITRE has its
own independent research and development program that explores new
technologies and new uses of technologies to solve problems in the near
term and in the future.
[7] See GAO: FAA Airspace Redesign: An Analysis of the New York/New
Jersey/Philadelphia Project, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-08-786] (Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2008).
[8] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-479T].
[9] ADS-B is a satellite navigation system that is designed, along with
other navigation technologies, to enable more precise control of
aircraft during en route flight, approach, and descent.
[10] FAA's Air Traffic Organization consists of 35,000 controllers,
technicians, engineers, and support personnel responsible for moving
air traffic safely and efficiently.
[11] SWIM is an information management architecture for the national
airspace system, acting as its "World Wide Web." SWIM will manage
surveillance, weather, and flight data, as well as aeronautical and
system status information, and will provide the information securely to
users.
[12] FAA's certification process ensures the safety of aircraft
equipment entering the national airspace system.
[13] FAA's operational approval process ensures, among other things,
that pilots are trained in the use of new equipment and procedures, and
technicians are trained in the maintenance of them before the equipment
is used in the national airspace system.
[14] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-479T].
[15] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-479T].
[16] FAA's Operational Error program will no longer include the names
of controllers in reports sent to FAA headquarters on operational
errors, which occur when the proper distance between aircraft is not
maintained.
[17] ATSAP allows controllers and other employees to report safety
problems without fear of punishment unless the incident is deliberate
or criminal in nature. ATSAP responded to our prior recommendation (GAO-
08-29) that FAA establish a nonpunitive voluntary safety reporting
program for air traffic controllers. As of July 2009, ATSAP was being
demonstrated at 187 facilities throughout the country. Nationwide
implementation of the program is expected by the end of the
demonstration phase at the end of 2009.
[18] See [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-718R].
[19] Karen Marais and Annalisa L. Weigel, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Encouraging and Ensuring Successful Technology Transition
in Civil Aviation, 2007.
[20] ADS-B has two components. ADS-B Out continuously transmits an
aircraft's position, altitude, and direction to controllers on the
ground and to other aircraft. ADS-B In enables another aircraft to
receive the transmitted data, giving pilots with ADS-B In a complete
picture of their aircraft in relation to other ADS-B equipped traffic.
FAA is deploying the nationwide ground infrastructure needed to receive
ADS-B information and integrate it with controller displays. FAA
expects this ground network to be fully deployed in 2013.
[21] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-718R].
[22] Controller Pilot Data Link Communications was designed to allow
pilots and controllers to transmit digital messages directly between an
FAA ground automation system and suitably equipped aircraft. The system
was meant to alleviate voice congestion problems and increase
controller efficiency. While some operators installed the necessary
equipment on their aircraft, FAA never fully implemented the program
and those operators were unable to benefit fully from their investment.
[23] In 2002, Congress mandated the Commission on the Future of the
United States Aerospace Industry to produce a report that studied the
health of the aerospace industry and identified actions that the United
States needs to take to ensure its health in the future.
[24] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-718R].
[25] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-718R].
[End of section]
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