**FADE \"War Game\" Exercise with the Airlines, Dec. 6-7**

**Background.** The FAA Airline Data Exchange or FADE project was
created to see if up to date airline schedule information would result
in improved traffic management decision making. Early attempts to
acquire airline schedule data for operational purposes were resisted by
the airlines. This was because suppliers of schedule information were
\"double penalized\": airline operational delays were compounded with
air traffic delays during a ground delay program and the arrival slots
associated with airline cancelled flights were deleted from the FAA\'s
enhanced traffic management system (ETMS) preventing the affected
airline from substituting other flights into those slots. As a result,
the R&D community of the FAA developed a FADE prototype to demonstrate
how the ETMS system could be modified to accept schedule information and
not penalize the airlines providing that information. Benefits to the
airlines would occur in two ways: improved decision making by the
traffic management specialists and a \"schedule compression\" which
reduced delays by moving flights up into unused arrival slots.

**The decision to use a \"war gaming\" format.** The prototype
developers felt that the best way to validate the FADE concept was to
run an exercise with both airline operations personnel and traffic
management specialists using the FADE protoype software. The purpose of
the exercise was to

> \(1\) Flesh out system requirements with respect to timing and data
> elements,
>
> \(2\) Identify issues for candidate \"rules of engagement\" between
> the airlines and air traffic and
>
> \(3\) Determine the next steps

**Participants.** The exercise, which occurred at Metron in Reston, was
attended by the following airlines: American, Continental, Delta,
United, USAIR, NorthWest, Trans World, South West, TWA Express, United
Express and Kiwi. In addtion a representative from the Air Transport
Associaton (ATA) was present. The Air Traffic Control System Command
Center (ATCSCC) supplied two traffic management specialists to
participate in the exercise. Observing the exercise were representatives
from Air Traffic, the traffic management integrated product team , the
FAA\'s operations research service and the Transportation System Center,
the Naval Research Laboratory, Mitre and the Center for Naval Analyses.

**How the exercise was conducted.** Each airline contingent was given a
UNIX work station and a copy of the FADE protoype software configured
for that airline. The \"ATCSCC\" contigent and its work station were
located in a separate room. Scenario control was maintained by the
supporting contractors from the ATCSCC work station. Each scenario would
start with a weather forecast and an affected airport. ATCSCC would
generated ground delay programs; the airlines would respond with
cancellations, substitutions and delays. The schedule information would
by sent to ATCSCC which would then revise, postpone, cancel or extend
the ground delay program. At the end of each scenario there was a
debrief for all participants.

**Results.** The four scenarios (by airport) were Boston, San Francisco,
St. Louis and Chicago. The total minutes in scheduled delay reduction,
cost savings, and percent reduction averaged over flights in the ground
delay program varied from scenario to scenario:

  ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- -----------------
  Scenario          Percent delay     Total minutes     Total cost
                    reduction         delay reduction   savings to
                                                        airlines
                                                        (\$25/minute)

  Boston            37                7,000             \$175,000

  San Francisco     4                 300               \$7,500

  St. Louis         8                 1,000             \$25,000

  Chicago           21                13,000            \$325,000
  ----------------- ----------------- ----------------- -----------------

Results from the exercise

Full FADE functionality in ETMS will take about 12 months (assuming
adequate funding). In the meanwhile ATM-500 and ATM-200 agreed to two
short term changes to the ETMS system:

> \(1\) Airlines can subsitute into arrival slots for flights that were
> originally exempt from the ground delay program
>
> \(2\) For the purposes for substitution, arrival slots time out at
> controlled arrival time instead of departure time

**Related Analyses.** An analysis of 115 historical ground delay
programs indicated that the schedule compression algorithm would reduce
scheduled delay by about 11%. This would translate into about \$71
million in savings per year from compression alone. Mitre, in an
independent look, estimated the savings due to compression to be about
12% of the total delay. An exercise in ATCSCC with four traffic
management specialists indicated that reduction of total delay minutes
due to improved decision making varied between 8% and 40% and was highly
dependent upon the individual specialist. The combined savings of
compression with improved decision making has not been estimated

**Next Steps.** Mitre is performing a detailed analysis of the war game
exercise using the TMAC model. The participating airlines have formed a
focus group for FADE and have submitted a list of issues with
recommendations to the FAA. The traffic management integrated product
team is working with ATM-500 and the Transportation System Center to
develop a detailed program plan for integrating FADE functionality into
ETMS.