ARTCC-Initiated Rerouting

Rerouting flights around severe weather or congestion is an important Traffic Flow Management (TFM) strategy. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been researching ways to improve reroute planning and execution. The purpose of the work documented in this paper is to refine existing reroute planning and execution concepts to more fully address Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC)-initiated rerouting or local rerouting. Local reroutes are performed primarily in instances when the weather is affecting departure routes from an airport in the ARTCC. Initial analysis has shown that the workload involved in local rerouting can be significant. This paper describes a proposal for improvements to the current operations. Central to the concept is an interactive capability available at the Traffic Management Unit (TMU) that presents the traffic manager with a selectable list of flight-specific reroutes, including those submitted by National Airspace System (NAS) users. This capability also allows the traffic manager to understand the effect of each reroute, to submit the reroute amendment to En Route automation, and to revert to the original route if the reroute is no longer needed.