Operational Evaluation of a Weather-Avoidance Rerouting System

The Dynamic Weather Routes system, designed to find time-saving corrections to convective weather avoidance routes for airborne flights in en route airspace, has been in operational evaluation at the American Airlines Integrated Operations Center since July 2012. This paper, following an initial study of the first three months of the evaluation, presents the potential time savings for 752 flights for which American Airlines Air Traffic Coordinators accepted weather avoidance advisories during the 2013 calendar year. These advisories are categorized by the proximity of convective weather to both the filed flight plan and the proposed route correction. While the bulk of potential savings came from aircraft receiving direct routes in clear weather, the greatest average savings per advisory (15 minutes per aircraft) resulted from route corrections around convective weather. Measurement of the time spent in analyzing advisories and resulting route corrections indicates that additional time savings can be realized by reducing communication and execution delays. Lastly, survey data validate airline confidence in the system, with an average of one advisory rejected for every seven accepted.