FAA Proposes Plan to Reduce Flight Delays
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: If you fly, you know the skies are only getting more and more crowded up there, so tomorrow, the Federal Aviation Administration will release its plan of attack for keeping the skies safer and less of a headache for you. But will it work? With a preview tonight, here's CNN's Bob Franken.</s>BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Federal Aviation Administration predicts the already crowded skies will get even more congested, 700 to 800 more flights in the air at any one time, more than a billion passengers a year. So, the FAA is proposing a 10-year plan.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten, 20, 15, it doesn't matter. They're not going to be able to do anything to affect the problems we have today.</s>FRANKEN: They intend to try. The FAA is proposing a high-tech system that relies heavily on global positioning satellites, the same system we use in cars, to give the pilots more information in the cockpit about other planes in the air or on the ground. Theoretically, that would allow them to chart a more direct route. Among the most enthusiastic are the air traffic controllers, but like all supporters, they acknowledge that at best this is not a quick fix.</s>JOHN CARR, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: It's going to take time, and it's going to have to be evolutionary.</s>FRANKEN: The FAA tried to create a new air traffic system in the 1990s, a $5.4 billion system that is widely considered to have been a debacle. And there is no shortage of those who believe this plan has limitations.</s>MICHAEL GOLDFARB, FORMER FAA CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, it's going to, in effect, make things less late.</s>FRANKEN (on camera): Many argue that one of the biggest problems is runways. There are far too few of them. The FAA recommends 15 new ones around the country, but nationwide many communities near airports have blocked new construction.</s>CAROL HALLETT, PRESIDENT, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION: Without more runways, we simply cannot accommodate all of the growing pressure for airplanes to fly more people.</s>FRANKEN (voice-over): The FAA says this plan is a start, a foundation that will provide gradual improvements over 10 years.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it'll reduce kind of the craziness and everything, holiday season and stuff like that, then why not?</s>FRANKEN: The industry and the regulators argue that it is still often a choice between delays and safety, but they also worry that travelers could make another choice, flying less. Bob Franken, CNN, Reagan National Airport.