Simulation and Operational Analysis of Airspace Flow Programs for Traffic Flow Management

*† ‡ § ** The Airspace Flow Program (AFP) is a new traffic flow management tool for strategically mitigating en route congestion in the National Airspace System. AFPs allow traffic management specialists to define a capacity-constrained en route resource, such as a fix, sector, or arbitrary region of airspace. Algorithms then identify the aircraft planning to use the resource and assign departure times that match the demand of the resource to its predicted capacity. After extensive simulation studies, AFPs were operationally deployed in spring 2006 and are initially being implemented to manage congestion during severe weather events in the eastern United States. This paper presents results of the simulation studies and describes potential analysis methodologies for assessing the operational performance of AFPs.