Aircraft operations experience record traffic and renewed emphasis on safety
By Tony Evans and Gabriele Enea|December 2024
The Aircraft Operations Technical Committee promotes safe and efficient operations in the airspace system by encouraging best practices and information-sharing among the community and government agencies.
From January to May, U.S. air traffic delays rose by just over 10% compared to the same period in 2023, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. FAA data shows the contribution to those delays of “weather” and “equipment” decreased from 2023, while “runway” and “other/staffing” contributions increased. “Volume” contributions were about the same between the two years, despite the increase of flights and passengers this year. July 7 was one of the busiest days in history, with over 3 million passengers.
There were several incidents and deadly accidents. A runway collision at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in January between an Airbus A350-900 and a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-Q300 killed five of the six Japan Coast Guard members aboard the Dash 8. Everyone on the A350 survived. Also in January, a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9. All aboard survived the uncontrolled decompression, although three passengers received minor injuries. In August, a Voepass ATR 72-500 crashed in Brazil, killing all 62 on board. In March, a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 dove unexpectedly midflight, injuring 50, and in May, one person died aboard a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER in a rare fatal turbulence accident. These accidents brought renewed attention to aircraft safety.
In February, FAA finalized its Airplane Fuel Efficiency Certification rule to reduce carbon pollution from new jets and turboprops manufactured after Jan. 1, 2028. Work continued across the community on aviation climate impact reduction through optimized aircraft operations, contrail mitigation and increased use of sustainable aviation fuels.
In June, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation hosted the first Global Trajectory-Based Operations Symposium, in which air navigation service providers and aircraft operators from around the world laid out priorities and solutions to implement the new traffic management paradigm. FAA and EUROCONTROL agreed that the Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment flight planning approach and connected aircraft capabilities will be instrumental to achieving the efficiency benefits of trajectory-based operations.
In August, FAA’s Urban Air Mobility Airspace Management Demonstration project demonstrated how UAM corridors might work with live flights in California. In March, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California began preparing for studies of passenger comfort in future air taxis with tests in a new virtual reality flight simulator. NASA also continued developing a UAM noise prediction tool.
Internationally, the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Advanced Air Mobility Study Group, established in 2023, assisted the ICAO secretariat in facilitating the safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sustainable integration of advanced air mobility operations and the development of the AAM ecosystem. This year, the group performed a gap analysis between existing practices, ICAO provisions and what might be required from ICAO for AAM traffic management. In Europe, the Single European Sky ATM Research initiative in March selected the CORUS Five project to extend and mature the European concept of operations for U-Space above very low levels and in the vicinity of controlled airports. U-space refers to the suite of procedures and technologies needed for large numbers of UAM aircraft to operate in a highly automated fashion. CORUS Five will build on achievements of the CORUS-XUAM project, which expand the U-space concept of operations to UAM.
In commercial space operations, 214 launches occurred as of mid-November, on track to surpass the 223 in 2023. Notable operations include SpaceX’s launches of six Starship-Super Heavy rockets and the inaugural launches of an Ariane 6, Orienspace’s Gravity-1 and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur. SpaceX conducted 104 Falcon 9 launches as of mid-November.
Contributors: Tom Reynolds and Savas Uskent
