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FAA Launches Faster, High-Altitude Flight Routes to Avoid Congestion Along the East Coast

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The Federal Aviation Administration has launched nearly 170 new flight routes that are shorter and faster, aiming to cut down on congestion in the eastern U.S. (www.cnbc.com) More...

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alsise2
Donald Parsons 10
...would save "about 6,000 minutes of travel time a year..." - is this 16.4 minutes a day per flight or a total per day for all flights?
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deafsound
David Westner 11
Struck me as odd too.
There's 15mil flights or so a year in the US.
If 6000 is total, and my math is correct (no guarantees on that), then that's roughly 0.0004 seconds per flight.
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toonarmycaptain
David Antonini 6
The FAA says "The direct routes will shave off 40,000 miles and 6,000 minutes of travel time annually from being shorter in distance." so I'm presuming this is a system wide saving, but per trip.
So one trip might be saved 15m and another 2m up to 6,000m across the network. But if you make that route with the 15m saved 6x a day, you save an hour and a half a day.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-activates-scores-new-faster-routes-along-east-coast-ahead-summer
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NF2G
David Stark 3
Wrong denominator. 6,000 minutes of flying time over the number of flights that would switch to the new East Coast routes, not all US flights.
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RECOR10
RECOR10 2
The number came from the Govt...it is a worthless number.
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sparkie624
sparkie624 0
All of that time adds up, and will do so quicker than you would think.
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1mooneymite
1mooneymite 15
..."also prompted airlines to scale back summer schedules in the New York area. " so, maybe we are returning to jumbo jets to serve high density markets? The allure of small jets with frequent flights has run into the reality of capacity.
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darjr26
darjr26 9
Larger jets would also help with the shortage of pilots. Reducing frequency and using larger aircraft makes a lot of sense.
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srobak
srobak 7
I've been bewildered by this for years. All it did was add congestion on the ground, increase maintenance issue counts and cause more points of failures for cascading delays. Use large already less on less frequent intervals between major airports.
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HORNETDRIVR
Mike Taylor 5
Please. It amazes me that people are willing to endure a 5+ hour flight on a 737. Had to endure that years ago on a flight to Cancun [due to limited overwater capability]. Never again! Same goes for Hawaii.
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ewrcap
ewrcap 4
I used to fly regularly from Europe to NY and you generally get a clearance to cross BOS at 16,000 ft. Over 150 nm from the destination. Normally one would plan for that altitude 45-50 miles out. Horribly wasteful but it’s the only way ATC knows how to do it.
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deanbog1
Dean Bogdanowich 9
Being a retired center controller . its not the way ATC knows how to do it . Most procedures are written by the folks who couldn't control traffic or are medically unable . And they always take into account for the "Weakest link " and since the older controllers have to retire at 56 you are now stuck with millennial controllers who dont like complexity .
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btweston
btweston 3
Why would one want complexity?
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skyeagle
Yassine Cherfouni 2
Unless you’re the prophet Moses the “ Magic stick will not always work” the consequences and the congested Airports on the ground is the main issue before flying higher altitudes.
What you would gain on a higher altitudes, needs be realized on a timely manner when taking off , landing or taxiing.
Any realistic and good idea is always welcomed.
Stay safe ladies and gentlemen of the crew members.
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kboczek
Karl Boczek 1
Well that explains why we were heading straight over from Europe instead of arching up and we were at 40000 and above 500mph once over the Atlantic.. I Track everything on my garmin to compare to the in flight info.. But have logged everything... I also know instead of the artificial atmosphere of 5000' they actually have us around 6100' - saves more on fuel if the compressor fan isn't bled of for more cabin pressure than needed.
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CanAmSteve
Stephen Patriquen 1
I live in rural Maine where international flights often pass overhead at 35K ft or more. Typically the inbound and outbound Euro flight paths are staggered both horizontally (with outbound being more offshore) as well as vertically, but lately I have seen several "head on" routings on the same course but of course staggered vertically for separation. I wonder if some change has been made here as well to reduce congestion?
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Budlake
Mike Monk -1
18000' can hardly be considered "High Altitude".
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madrockradio
James Cross 15
That's the definition of high altitude as far as IFR routes and charts are concerned... Which is what the article is about.
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crichardfrancis
crichardfrancis 3
That's a fair comment but this was on CNBC and so, I imagine, aimed at the general public (like me), not aviation professionals. I do most of my flying in Europe where flights are much higher than 18000 ft: e.g. last week a couple of 1h30m flights at 35000 and 37000ft respectively (according to Flightradar24). So I was sort of expecting something like 40000ft + in this news item.

That's the problem with us non-pro's I guess ;-)
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