Unfortunately, this post is being delayed by air traffic control
August 12, 2022 7:39 PM   Subscribe

Have you ever wondered what's happening when the pilot comes on the intercom and says they're being held by the tower? The US FAA's National Airspace System status dashboard provides a behind-the-scenes peek at the factors* and policies that drive flight delays, cancellations, and other traveler annoyances as controllers manage the nation's vast and complex airspace.

The dashboard allows you to see major issues affecting flights, including ground stops (slowing or stopping the inbound flow of planes to certain destinations), flow constrained areas (rate limiting flights that cross certain areas to reduce congestion), severe weather avoidance programs (SWAPs), and more fun acronyms. (Of course, this doesn't account for things out of the control of air traffic control, like airline staff shortages or plane maintenance issues.)

Finally, the Eurocontrol operations portal offers some similar data, although I'm not as familiar with how EU airspace works.
posted by redct (11 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Apparently nothing is happening right now?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:44 PM on August 12, 2022


Checking the ticker and no activity.

There was a time when a delay or lay-over could be adventurous and disappointing. Like losing your monocle on the train.
posted by clavdivs at 8:14 PM on August 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


Perfect timing.  GCP Grey just posted something adjacent to this if you find airport arcana fun: The Simple Secret of Runway Digits
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 8:51 PM on August 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


The earlier version of this dashboard was invaluable back when I was often on airplanes. Between it and red1aviation, which gave me access to GDS notes about delays and the ability to cross reference incoming aircraft to see ahead of time if they were going to be late I saved a lot of waiting between not showing up at the airport before it was actually necessary, requesting reroutes before anybody else knew there was going to be an issue, and also saved on the stress because I was always informed about what was actually happening and when I could expect to get out of purgatory.

The FAA dashboard and the aviation weather forecasts also left me prepared to deal with bad travel days or if shit was real fucked just ask to be rescheduled to a different day so I could avoid the hassle entirely. Back then they didn't play chicken as much and they'd just let you change your ticket ahead of time if things were obviously going to be severely delayed rather than playing chicken with you in an effort to collect more change fees.
posted by wierdo at 11:23 PM on August 12, 2022 [7 favorites]


PIREPs is also fun when you’re in the air and wondering when the bumps will stop.
posted by migurski at 11:24 PM on August 12, 2022


I remember using sites that would give you info on where your flight was coming from, and that gave me a real leg up, but I never knew about this dashboard. Would have given me a better picture of the whole situation.
I also remember planes in general. Not sure I'll get to use them again.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 5:05 AM on August 13, 2022


Related fun: See all the planes in the world right now!

flightaware.com
posted by freakazoid at 6:08 AM on August 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


(or alternatively https://www.flightradar24.com/)
posted by DreamerFi at 7:11 AM on August 13, 2022


Earlier this week, I was about to land at Logan when the plane suddenly pulled up sharply. A few minutes later, both the pilot and my husband, via text from home, announced that we needed to circle because a plane didn’t take off on time. Except my husband mentioned the airline. Ok, he was tracking online.

Except he wasn’t. He was playing Microsoft Flight Simulator and was taking off from Logan as I was supposed to land. The real time air traffic thing is legit, as his game was saying “Delta, clear the runway” at the same time Delta was not, in fact, clearing the runway.
posted by Ruki at 8:53 AM on August 13, 2022 [5 favorites]


Interesting. Apparently as of right now 1100 PDT the only event is Teterboro will be closed until 14th and only open to helicopters.

For those of you wanting to LEARN how everything fit together but without shelling out for private pilot license, maybe start listening to the various ATC conversations put into episodes online, usually a pan-pan or mayday declaration of some sort. Examples:

RealATC: Lufthansa 747 has an engine failure, but NOT an emergency. (so the pilot insists, which the ATC were... confused at the German professionalism)

RealATC: Piper Dakota control-crashed on Highway 99 in Modesto, CA bad engine and not enough glide means he end up landing on an offramp and caused a bit of brushfire, but he lived.

ATC POV: Navy Training Pilots Escort Aircraft to Land at Airport under Bad Weather. TL;DR: the pilot was only trained for VFR (visual nav) but the weather closed in and there was no airport in the area he can land at visually and his fuel is running out. They found an airport that's barely open, but he's never been there. There were two Navy trainers in the area and they escorted him to the airport, make sure he could see the runway, then left the scene.

There are obviously plenty of videos that teaches how to talk to ATC as a pilot if you want to learn that. But I find all these takeoff and landing instructions and vectors fascinating with all those 5-letter nav points / beacons.

Now imagine all these but in Chinese. :D China chose to run ATC in Chinese unless they're talking to foreign aircraft, then they will speak in English. So you end up hearing both English and Chinese on ATC channel. Japan on the other hand, chose to do all ATC in English. Lots of interesting things you can pickup if you want to listen to all this.
posted by kschang at 11:34 AM on August 13, 2022


Former controller here. I live vicariously through watching the command center's messages. Looking at the "Full Operation's Plan" link in the middle of the page, you get the full "briefing" on the general thought processes the Traffic Management Units across the country work on during the day. These types of messages are distributed to airlines, etc. Not only does the Command Center coordinate with the Air Traffic Control centers across the country, they coordinate with airlines, etc.
What has been notable this summer on the Ops Plan messages this summer is the major headings of "Staffing Triggers". Air traffic facilities across the country are still struggling with basic Covid planning. With no mask mandates, and silly FAA/Union coordination, the "triggers" you see mean "less controllers working planes" so the airspace around those areas either have to slow down the aircraft, or not provide "normal" services. I live close to Long Beach airport here in Socal, and for the entire month of July the control tower here restricted any pattern traffic (touch and goes, etc). This, is, of course, devastating to the local flight training schools here at Long Beach.
This link goes to the Command Center's Database Selection form, where you can see all the messages in sequential order. "ATCSCC Advisories Only" and "Show all Messages in Sequential Order" are already selected. Click "Show Selected Advisories" for the entire list of the dozens of messages. Every message tells a story.
https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/advAdvisoryForm.jsp

Edit: Air Traffic Control runs on "Zulu" time/Greenwich Mean Time/Universal Coordinated Time or what ever you want to call it these days. In my case, on the west coast, I see messages for the "day" (Saturday) that started at 5 pm on Friday, which is "midnight Zulu".
posted by pthomas745 at 3:11 PM on August 13, 2022 [2 favorites]


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