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2.c. Efficiency and Aviation Capacity

There are many proposals being considered to improve the air traffic management system including paradigm changes that would reinvent the system. When there are too many airplanes in the sky, then a logical solution would be to reduce their numbers by making larger aircraft that would hold twice as many passengers. This would reduce the number of aircraft in the skies without reducing the number of passengers. Currently, Boeing 747-400 jetliners can hold about 560 passengers, while their 777 counterparts can hold about 550 passengers. Airbus Industries recently announced a jumbo aircraft that will hold nearly 555 passengers. This means that a commercial jetliner's design in the future would have to hold around 900 - 1,000 passengers. These airplanes will need to be larger, perhaps have a greater wingspan, and have more powerful engines. The larger the airplane or more powerful the engine, the longer the runway will need to be. That's because these airplanes take more time to get up enough speed to generate the lift needed to rise above the runway during takeoff. These airplanes also need a longer runway during landing than today's jetliners because they would be heavier and would need more time (and distance) to come to a stop.

Possibly bigger is not better. Only a small percentage of major US airports would be able to accommodate such large jetliners. By necessity passengers would be forced to drive a greater distance to these major airports with long runways. Or passengers could fly using small to mid-sized commuter aircraft from nearby smaller airports to the larger airport where they would change aircraft, resuming their trip on a "super jumbo" jetliner. This is similar to how air traffic is routed now, but in this model we would have fewer numbers of the large airports to be used by the larger jetliners.

Decreasing air traffic into the major metropolitan airports by increasing the amount of air traffic at the smaller airports would be another possible solution. Having the smaller commercial aircraft fly directly from one small airport to another would reduce the flow of traffic through many major US airports or current airline hubs. Such point-to-point flights would reduce the amount of time a passenger would spend traveling by routing them directly to their final destination. A Civil Tiltrotor or other similar small aircraft could operate from conveniently located heliports to take passengers to larger hub airports. This would reduce at the major airports the large number of commuter flights that account for 40% of the operations.

Learn more about how NASA research is working to improve efficiency and aviation capacity.

• AILS and ADS-B will improve traffic flow on closely-spaced parallel runways.
• FAST will help controllers efficiently space aircraft on approach.
• AVOSS will help maximize safe airport throughput by monitoring wake turbulence.