Boeing plans Unsnarl Air Traffic, cedes ground control to satellites

Seattle

WHEN Boeing Co announced that it was getting into the air-traffic management business last year, most of the people who had been doing that job for the last 40 years started scratching their heads: What could an airplane builder tell the experts about air traffic?

Plenty, Boeing says.

The company this month is set to present what it calls a novel approach to rationalising a system that has become so overburdened that even the good days are nightmarish. At the heart of the plan is a shift from the current ground-based air-traffic-control system to one primarily reliant on Global Positioning Satellites, known as GPS.

Boeing sees a future in which airplanes will soar efficiently and directly to their destinations under the guidance of satellites. Navigation computers that would be standard equipment on Boeing-made jetliners would transmit precise information about location and speed to one another, making it possible for pilots to look at a screen in the cockpit and have a view of the skies now reserved for air-traffic controllers. Such precise information could eventually lead to decreased distances between flights, allowing more planes to be in the air instead of stacked up on runways. Air-traffic controllers would still be necessary, particularly at busy airports, but for en route flights, the job might evolve into something more like referee than shepherd.

Boeing won’t confirm details, but the plan will apparently rely on technologies that already largely exist, cobbled together by a Boeing-made satellite network. Boeing officials do say the equipment needed to operate in its system would be relatively inexpensive and easy to install on older airliners, as well as airplanes made by rival Airbus Industrie.

Steven Zaidman, associate administrator for research and acquisitions for the Federal Aviation Administration, says his agency is awaiting Boeing’s proposal with eagerness and a bit of skepticism. “If Boeing can provide value-added, then terrific. ... we’ll take a look at it and see how it fits into the needs of the users.” But he urges caution: “With technology,” he notes, “there is a long road between vision and implementation.”

Officials at the major airlines say they also are eager to see Boeing’s proposals, particularly with regard to how much investment in new equipment is required. “We have some concerns about how or if Boeing’s ideas will even work in the real-world environment, but I would call for a state of open-mindedness until we have seen what they propose,” says Robert Baker, vice chairman of AMR Corp’s American Airlines.

The idea of satellite-based navigation isn’t new. The government, the air-traffic controller’s union and competing vendors like Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Co, have been talking about the idea for years. United Parcel Service Inc’s UPS Airlines and FedEx Corp’s Federal Express have both been using an early version of satellites and data links to improve operations at their largest hubs. The problem is with bringing the entire air-traffic system into the satellite age without driving users to bankruptcy or compromising the safety of thousands of passengers. It is a problem that predated the development of GPS and is one that has flummoxed presidential commissions, FAA administrators and the airlines for decades.

Why does Boeing think it can do better? “Among all of the people you could turn to, we probably have the most vested interest in doing something about it,” says John Hayhurst, president of Boeing’s newly formed air-traffic-management unit. The company predicts a $30 billion market for jetliners in the next 20 years — if the inefficiencies of the present air-traffic system don’t strangle demand.

Those who have been a part of the system for years agree that the air-traffic system is in dire need of modernization. But so much needs to be done on so many different levels that a flow chart of the work required looks like a highway map of Los Angeles. “There are no instantaneous silver bullets out there,” says Jack Fearnsides, an air-traffic expert and consultant for Lockheed Martin.

The current air-traffic system is built around a network of airways and radio beacons. Many of the beacons were located for ease of maintenance, not because they allowed the shortest possible routes. Over the years, despite significant modernization, the system has essentially retained the same design.

-- The Wall Street Journal