The FAA announced today that it is phasing in the Airspace Flow Program in order to better handle the flow of air traffic through areas affected by severe weather. In the past, ATC has used “ground stops” which affected many more aircraft than necessary. With the new AFP in place, controllers will be able to issue departure times to specific aircraft that have flight plans through the sectors with severe weather. Aircraft not traversing the affected areas will not be delayed.
This should definitely help – just last week my family and I were returning on a commercial flight from Illinois to Atlanta. We were at the hold short line, just about to depart, when ATC issued a ground stop for all traffic coming into Atlanta. There were storms northeast of the area, which meant one of the busiest arrival corridors was totally hosed. Traffic already enroute to ATL was being re-routed to the northwest, which further congested that arrival route. Under the new system, ATC now has the ability to issue departure times to individual aircraft heading for the affected area.
The FAA press release is here…