# Grounding to Avoid Airplane Delays

I recently flew through CLT and spent more time delayed than in the air. There were summer thunderstorms, and with the lightning it wasn't safe for workers to be out. This meant no loading, unloading, docking, refueling, anything. On the way in we sat on the tarmac for 3hr waiting for lightning to let up; on the way back we sat in the terminal (much better) while the incoming flight suffered through our prior fate.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/clt-delays-due-to-lightning.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/clt-delays-due-to-lightning-big.jpg)

Ground delays due to electrical storms are common, and each minute of closure is extremely expensive for the airlines in addition to being painful for the passengers. We don't stop inside work when there's lightning, why can't we get the same protection for ground workers? This is something we know how to do: give the electricity a better path to ground.

We could build grounded towers, about 100ft high, and run a grid of cables between them. Cover the area adjacent to the terminal, which is the only area you need people working outside. While this wouldn't be worth it all airports, the ROI at a high-closure airport like Orlando, Dallas, or Miami would be only 3-4 years. In 2008, Heitkemper et al. ([Lightning-Warning Systems for Use by Airports](https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/14192/chapter/2)) estimated that reducing ramp closure duration by 10min after an area strike would have saved $6.2M summer 2006 at ORD and $2.8M MCO. Let's try to get an annual estimate in 2025 dollars:

*   Annual savings would be moderately higher (perhaps 20%), since this number is just Jun-Aug and there's some lightning in the off season.
    
*   We're also talking about reducing the delay from 30min all the way down to 0min, which should give roughly 3x the savings.
    
*   Planes are scheduled and filled more tightly than they were in 2006, increasing the cost of cascading delays. Guessing this is an increase of 30%.
    
*   Traffic is up 70% at MCO between [2006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic_(2000%E2%80%932009)#2006_statistics) and [2024](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic), and 25% at ORD.
    
*   There's been 60% inflations since 2006.
    

Taken together, the annual cost savings of eliminating lightning closures would be ~$36M at MCO and ~$58M at ORD.

The cost of installing a system is hard to say, but it's a matter of building grounded towers about 100ft tall (above the tails of the tallest planes) and running cables between them. Everything is much more expensive due to being at an airport, but if you're doing hundreds of gates perhaps figure $300k/gate. Then MCO with its 129 gates would be $40M and ORD with its 215 gates would be $65M.

With annual savings in the same ballpark as installation costs, this would be excellent ROI. And even if it costs five times what I'm estimating here it's still well worth it.

Am I missing something? None of this is new technology, ground delays due lighting have been an issue as long as we've had planes, this seems like the obvious solution, and it could have been done anytime in the past ~75 years. Is it more expensive than I'm guessing? Not protective enough? Hard to fit the towers in without getting in the way of moving the planes? Impractical to dissipate this much electricity into the ground without generating hazardous step potentials? Demonstrating safety to the satisfaction of OSHA and unions impractical? Airports have to pay but airlines get the benefit? Only recently became worth it as increased loading an precision has increased the cost of ground delays?

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