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The Federal Aviation Administration said the steps it took this spring to reduce the effects of space launches on civilian air travel have already saved time for thousands of passengers and kept flights flowing smoothly to popular tourist destinations in Florida.
Duane Freer, manager of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization’s Space Operations told USA TODAY that “taking a finer pencil to the way operations are run and managed” resulted in both time and fuel savings for airlines and air travelers.
Most space launches from Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center have used a revised airspace closure procedure since April 7 to keep a major air traffic approach lane for flights to Orlando and Tampa open.
How the tweak saves passengers time
A previous version of FAA guidance meant that planes set to fly that route during a space launch would have to take an aerial detour, resulting in longer travel time, more fuel burned and more congested airspace over other parts of Florida.
The detours were required because airspace closures were previously designed to account for any possible launch trajectory, rather than taking into account the actual spacecraft flight plan.
The FAA estimates that under those previous guidelines, up to 36 flights would be rerouted per launch, affecting an average of 4,300 travelers.
Since the new guidelines were instituted, airspace that previously would have been closed was able to remain open during 10 out of 12 space launches.
“If we look at 100 missions over a year, if 80% of those keep that open over a year, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of passengers who won’t be affected (by space launches),” Freer said.
As summer travel ramps up, he said he wants passengers to know that the agency is pulling every lever it can to keep air traffic flowing smoothly.
“More aircraft are staying on their preferred routes, on their scheduled routes and not being rerouted,” Freer said. “Much like a road detour,” he added, when planes get rerouted it can result in “extra miles flown, extra minutes delayed, tighter connections at the airport, maybe missed connections.”
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What does this change mean for flight safety?
The FAA has also been grabbing headlines lately for a series of near-misses and technology hiccups that have made some travelers and legislators question the state of safety in U.S. aviation.
But Freer insists the changes to air closure requirements during space launches have no impact on safety.
“There’s a very extensive risk assessment before each mission,” he said. “There are opportunities without affecting the risk, to open up additional airspace.”
And, he added, when the risk assessment shows that the launch vehicles could come too close to planes, that airspace is closed as it would have been under the old rules.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com
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