FAA Initiative Promises Greater Efficiency, Lower Emissions at HJIA
Air Traffic Controllers at Atlanta’s airport guide incoming aircraft.
Watching a computer screen just above a panoramic window of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, air traffic controllers direct planes as they come in to land.
To get to the runways, controllers instruct planes to descend a little, level off, then descending a little more.
Acting Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Huerta likens it to someone walking down a set of stairs.
“It’s the aviation equivalent of stop-and-go driving along the highway,” he says. In other words, slow and inefficient.
But Huerta says something called “optimized profile descent” promises to change that.
The new method, now in place for some flights coming into ATL, allows planes to idle their engines and glide down one smooth slope until they reach the airport.
It’s “more like sliding down the banister,” Huerta explains.
The FAA says the new approach method will save airlines flying into Atlanta about 2.9-million gallons of fuel a year — something Delta Air Lines says is significant.
It’s all part of the FAA’s “NextGen” long-term transition from a radar-based air traffic system to GPS satellite navigation.
Charlotte Douglass International Airport will also implement the change, with dozens more airports scheduled to come online in the next few years.
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