It isn’t showing up clearly yet on those increasingly sluggish, supposedly real-time sites like FlightStats.com, but air traffic is snarling nationally as the evening crush approaches.
CNN has heads-up reporting on the developing mess. The F.A.A.’s inexcusably aged, badly maintained technology is responsible. This is just one sign of things to come, I fear.
The usual advice: Check ahead before going to the airport. If you’re flying, bring snacks. You could be stuck on a tarmac for a while.
And by the way, ignore any news outlets that give you the lame advice to consult the F.A.A. flight delay information page at www.faa.gov! That site hasn’t functioned in over a year. The F.A.A. — which is run, incidentally, by political appointees whose background is mostly in interstate-trucking regulation — can’t get the planes up in the air; you expect them to have a useful public information site?
Update: The F.A.A. has sent out a statement that’s as vapid as it gets. The malfunctioning computer, near Atlanta, is forcing pilots to file fight-plans manually. (Remember, there are about 5,000 airplanes in flight at any given time during the day). “Airplanes are safe and controllers can see aircraft,” the F.A.A. says. “They are simply inputting flight plans manually, which takes more time than an electronic transfer.”
(You betcha it does. It also opens up great opportunity for mistakes.)
The F.A.A. says, “We are working to correct this issue …”
Issue! Note that they don’t even have the simple good sense to call it a “problem.”
And the F.A.A. says, “You can see real time which airports are being affected at www.fly.faa.gov”
No, you cannot. As I said, that site has been inoperative for over a year. Must be some “issue” involved.
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August 26th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
The delay index map and the FAA delay map on FlightStats.com are showing significant and excessive delays at quite a number of US airports.
The delay index is based on flight delays and cancellations over a 3 hour period (previous 1 hour through 2 hours in the future). It is updated every 30 minutes. This does mean that the index lags a bit when there are significant changes that happen rapidly. However, we feel the 3 hour window better reflects the overall operations than a shorter time frame.
In the case of the FAA delay map at FlightStats, it is more “real-time” but is based on FAA air traffic control measures and not actual flight delays. Although more “real-time” we believe it is not as good an indicator or actual flight delays.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:50 am
You must be using Firefox. For some inexplicable reason, they don’t bother to make it work in Firefox, but it works just fine in Internet Explorer.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I use http://www.fly.faa.gov all the time. It works, and has worked, just fine. Note that there are some browser compatibility issues - I’m a Mac guy so I am in the habit to click on “text only version” (top right) to get to the info. Then after I read your post, I went to it today and I can also now see the color coded map on the main page (new for me).
Yes, the FAA has huge problems, but I don’t think this is one of them.
Regards –dave
September 19th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Hello everyone.
I am new here, and I’m glad that found this place.