will come to order the chair will ask that all members staff and everyone in the room chart electronic devices off or put them on vibrate the seven committee is meeting today to hear testimony on next gen area navigation and required navigation performance procedures the chair would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from alaska the former chairman of the full committee mr young a member of the full committee be allowed to participate at a subcommittee hearing without objection so larger i have a link the opening statement that i will submit for the record and then recognize the my ranking member mr p try for any remarks that he may have and then we will go directly to witnesses i welcome everyone here to the subcommittee hearing on next gen area navigation required medication for the point of our n also business issues as to how to roll out this new technology in a way that is attractive and used by the community and that people will buy into because it's in their interest to do it at various stages of the  procedure and so i'm hopeful that there will be even more discussion consultation and work to kind of come up with road map a map that makes sense for the  community for ruling this this out so that it can be used by different companies and you know way that maybe gives them a little competitive edge a sense of ices their competitors to buy into it rather than being done sort of a mandate approach but a lot of issues involved in this whole area and it's clearly very important to try to get it right in advance rather than pointing fingers as often happens with various major federal undertakings because things haven't worked after the fact and with that i think over witnesses for being here look forward to just thank the ranking member and i would advise all members at their full statement will be submitted in appear in the record the chair now would recognize and under do some witnesses today and let me say to each of our witnesses that your full statement will appear in the record as well will be  in the record as you submitted we would ask that you would summarize your testimony in five minutes and that will allow for us to have adequate time to ask questions the first witness will be department of transportation dr center who is the senior vice president general manager for the center of advanced aviation system development at the miter corporation mr tom bradley the president of the association so ladies and gentlemen here your statement will appear in the record and at this time i would call on mr day to offer your testimony thank you chairman costello ranking member p tryon members of the subcommittee and thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the f a s program for our nav an r m p these are some of what we call performance faced an excuse me navigational procedures or p b n p b n requires a certain level of performance from the aircraft in the air crew to fly a certain type of air traffic procedure it used to be that aircraft can navigate primarily by ground base navigational aids depending on the location and the position of those navigational sources the aircraft was limited in how efficiently and precisely it could fly now with advances in technology we were able to take advantage of space based navigational sources such as g p s arnav r m p gives greater aircraft flexibility in flight paths and profiles and it enables them to fly more precise and efficient routes this leaves the potential for flights to reduce the miles flown fuel saved and improve efficiency the development of arnav r m p procedures is a relatively young program at the f a a as you can see from the slide and i know it's difficult to see which shows the current state of arnav our m p implementation since two thousand and two we have accomplished quite a bit currently we have one hundred fifty nine are now routes and two hundred seventy arnav arrival and departure procedures implemented into the nass we also have an additional one hundred sixty three r n p special aircraft and aircrew required approaches or sar approaches procedures in the nass by the end of fiscal year two thousand and nine we anticipate that we will have an additional forty eight are never routes thirty five arnav arrival and departure procedures and twenty nine are in piece our approach procedures in place overall we have over eight thousand ppm procedures throughout the nass along the way we have encountered some challenges and we learn from them we intend to apply those lessons learned as we move forward for example where we have a standard process for developing our nav and our m p procedures in the terminal area we do not have a comparable process for developing procedures elsewhere in the operational environment we believe this is an area where we can improve by mapping agency wide all the p p b and processes to standardize how we develop test chart and implement p b m procedures i'm pleased to report that we should be starting work on the mapping process in the next couple of weeks as we move forward there are other challenges that continue to face us and the advancement of arnav our m p first on the list of challenges is prioritization of which procedures to create and implement and in what order second are the environmental issues which require time for us to examine third as the industry moves so  signed seeing a hybrid equipage environment where some aircraft are capable of flying arnav are empty and others are not some of our other technical challenges are illustrated in the second slide that we for paired for this hearing each phase of flight faces unique challenges for example for departures and arrivals we may be faced with the conflicting air traffic between adjacent airports in the en route environment we may need to avoid restricted military airspace and for arrivals and departures we want to ensure we provide our controllers with the right tools to make the right decisions traffic i want to assure you that the next gen readiness concept by train the system as a network this will include development of an integrated system of routes and procedures wide this broader view will help to advance and accelerate next  a family medical matter however i can assure you that the statement has received his full attention as you know arnab are to the success of f a a next gen they are the legs to the table without the next gen will not function by relying on satellite navigation and on board avionics to maximize air arnab an arm could achieve substantial benefits including fuel savings and  airport arrival rate while arnab an r and d have considerable industry support some stakeholders are dissatisfied with f a a the overall method for implementing these initiatives today i will focus on two key areas first implementation concerns that limit the benefits of arnav and r and d and second the lack of clarity surrounding the role and oversight of third parties in developing new arnav our m p have achieved some benefits but f a a must address several concerns to realize their full potential first f a a has yet to develop unique routes instead the agency places new routes over existing ones and continues to focus on the quantity rather than the quality of new flight path as airline representatives note the new routes provide few if any added benefits because they are essentially the same ones that airlines already fly another longstanding concern is the potential impact mix equipage will have on our n p s implementation experts believe most aircraft will need to be equipped with advanced avionics to realize benefit quipping the aircraft has been a subject of intense debate until this is resolved concerns remain that mixed equipage will increase controller workload and may introduce new hazards in the congested airspace we are particularly concerned about this given the large number of developmental controllers in the system a third concern is that f a a has not developed a plan to effectively manage interdependent effort including arnav an r p airspace redesign an air traffic control modernization system all of these efforts must be fully integrated and synchronized to maximize benefits a begins to develop more complex and demanding routes and procedures it will need to re evaluate align and coordinate plans and budgets as well as address controller and pilot training needs now i'd like to focus on the second key area regarding third parties the role of third parties in developing our n t procedures is unclear and industry is skeptical of f a s ability to deliver the more complex procedures at industry's request f a a entered into agreements with two third parties to design and develop certain r and p procedures airlines believe third parties could provide expertise and resources to compliment a s efforts to achieve quality procedures however f a a program officials told us that they do not plan to use third parties to speed r n p adoption because f a a is meeting its annual production goals as part of the agreement f a a provided an option for carriers to use third parties to develop public procedures those that can be used by all airlines with equipped aircraft but we question the soundness of this business case because it's unlikely that carriers will invest in procedures that other carriers will benefit from at no cost air carriers that choose to use third parties to develop public procedures would essentially be investing in their competitors from the carriers perspective a more logical business case would be to use special r and p procedures those designed specifically for their use and not available to other carriers however f a a is concerned that an increasing number of special procedures will further burden controllers and complicate the airspace ultimately the role of third parties will require an understanding of the deal mix and expertise of f a a but this type of assessment has not been done absent clear roles and responsibilities it is difficult for f a a to establish a plan to oversee third party over the next decade f a a and the it is industry plan to invest billions of dollars in arnav are empty and other next gen efforts to better ensure efficient use of taxpayer and industry dollars we will continually monitor monitor f a a vision and strategy for arnab aren't the role and use of third parties and training needs for controllers and pilots mr chairman this concludes my statement i would be happy to answer any questions that in takes advantage of more advanced on board avionics to monitor the aircraft and i will give performance and to alert pilots when the required performance is not being achieved and have an r and b equipment have been steadily capabilities is nearly forty percent and have an r and b procedures are being implemented to achieve repeatable and predictable departure on route arrival and approach paths for aircraft are nav departure procedures implemented at atlanta in two thousand and six have shown and measured capacity gain of one to twelve departures per hour other procedures also result in reducing the workload associated with routine voice communications between pilot and air traffic controllers atlanta procedures show a decrease of about fifty percent in voice communications required between the pilots and controllers similar are now procedures have been implemented at airports such as dallas fort worth las vegas and phoenix with a cumulative savings of one hundred thirty million dollars from two thousand and six to two thousand and eight r and b procedures at portland have resulted in fuel savings of hundred fifty thousand gallons and a reduction of seventy five hundred tons of carbon emissions since implementation in two thousand and six in many metropolitan areas arrival and departure paths at nearby airports can interfere with each other decoupling operations at chicago o'hare and midway through the use of an r nav departure procedure that chicago o'hare in combination with that has defined can provide an alternative means of access to runway and said currently cannot support an i l s at palm springs airport alaska airlines has reported over twenty instances where they were able to complete the flight and land at palm springs using our n t sol approaches since its implementation in two thousand and five within the descent phase of flight a strategy for reducing fuel use and emissions is to minimize the use of a level last a general term for the broad class of descent routes and procedures which are designed to use to reduce fuel burn and emissions during descent is optimized few profile defense several domestic trial implementations of regularly scheduled flights have shown significant promise d flight trials at atlanta and miami during two thousand and eight involved twenty flights with a fuel savings of fifty gallons per flight and a carbon emission reduction of approximately four fifty kilograms per flight miter recently conducted a nationwide estimated range of benefits achieved in those airports is equivalent to removing forty four hundred to thirteen thousand cars off the road every year at larger airports the benefits are higher but implementation of opiate is more complex and is likely to require a and b capabilities with the potential capacity benefit of adding a pristine to twenty two arrivals during instrument mythological conditions at airports such as san francisco los angeles and seattle in summary implementation over the past few years have resulted in significant benefits these implementations have been successful due to the pro's collaboration between the f a a and the aviation community through forums such as r t ca and the performance based operations aviation rule making committee commonly known as park as we move forward we must consider the implementation of those are never r and b procedures that result in the measurable high benefits to the community not just the number of procedures that are implemented furthermo taken as a part of a more comprehensive as based design finally as we look ahead and have an r and b in combination with other capabilities such as a d s p data communications and has ground automation capabilities and safe reduction in separation congressman peter ryan members of the subcommittee thank you for inviting past testified today on arnav r and p has represents proximately eleven thousand f a a employees throughout the united states and overseas including the f procedures development specialists flight inspection pilots and mission specialists in aviation aviation system standards it's generally accepted that the use of new performance based routes and procedures has great potential to enhance system to pass city and reduce environmental impact and fuel costs however a lack of clear guidance from the f a a has led to conflicting ideas among the industry f a a and even congressional proponents as to how these benefits can best be realized and agenda supported by many in the aviation industry in advance by some members of congress sect quotas for the production of new r and p procedures without regard for the feasibility of such a plan past believes that quotas are unrealistic very likely unachievable and are not based on the potential safety capacity and operational benefits to the overall nasa next chance promise is founded on shifting from ground base to satellite based operations this will not be accomplished solely through the use of new technology it will be a mix of new technology procedures and asians that will trick transform our current system into the one promised by next  but it seems that the drive for industry to equip with new technology to realize benefits as soon as possible may lead to an intended problems that could actually delay those gains the best equipped best served policy offered by the f a a may not be the best way to promote the adoption of new technology by users since the f a a left it to the r t c r t c a next an implementation task force to define the specific policy details the priority treatment promised by the f unclear yet the rush to gain this priority treatment has begun the very complex issues involved in developing and implementing new r and p procedures in support of next gen won't necessarily align themselves with the best equipped best served policy the work involves developing an integrated infrastructure not individual standalone procedures obstruction environmental issues must be resolved controlled airspace and air traffic flow must be taken into consideration any needed airspace rulemaking process is must be initiated and coordination with air traffic is needed to ensure that new procedure can be safely integrated into the management of the overall airspace additionally during the development of a new procedure changes and other procedures are often identified and further coordination must take place to ensure that everything continues to work together the numbers especially as procedures meant for the benefit of the user developing them have always been small in comparison to public use procedures which are meant for the use of all qualified users of the system however the push to develop thousands of new special use procedures would require coordination unlike any we have ever seen without extensive oversight these new procedures may not fit ongoing airspace redesign efforts and they may conflict with other r and p development that is underway at the same time to assume that all the conflict with public use procedures will be resolved through the f a a is best equipped best served policy is unrealistic pass also feels that any policy change to allow third parties to develop public use r m p procedures is misguided past police to safety critical work to be inherently governmental as such it should not be outsourced to private vendors additionally that the changes in air traffic operations that will be required for a systematic transition to the capabilities offered by next gen must not be unduly rushed we cannot forget that the changes that are coming include people not just technology and procedures the f a a has said that it believes it needs to take a strategic approach to our r nav procedures development and any corresponding airspace redesign work that is required to deploy those procedures past agrees with this approach and stands ready to work with the f a a and other stakeholders to accomplish the transition to the new capabilities that concludes my statement and i think the subcommittee for having me here today the chair thank you mr bradley and now recognizes mr paul mr chairman members of the com derive the value of the next gen traffic management system second r m p provides enormous environmental benefits and third arm p is fundamental to the transition from the past to the future for the technologies ready today all we have to do to reap the benefits of our m p s salaried implementation g aviation is a leader in efficient technology known for its innovation in aircraft engines but gee aviation navigation system guided the world's most successful aircraft for almost two decades in fact every two point seven seconds an aircraft goes airborne with a cheesy aviation plate management system computer guiding it our current a t c system is outdated it's a very large sky but we don't use very always within a wing span of airway centerline the improve navigation accuracy in all four dimensions and able to increase airspace capacity and efficiency let me tell you about a couple of examples that showcase the benefit of our p and g s technology australian airports and are saving fuel on carbon today another demonstration connect conducted by scandinavian airlines of sweden has taken our n p one step further and added the dimension of time time increases predictability with four dimensional trajectory based operations they've added the ability to do conflict traffic through trajectory negotiation and thousands of approaches into stockholm they have reduced by over fifty percent the area affected by noise greater than sixty five d b through the use of our m p and forty t b o in the case of our m p s should be know that all approaches are not created equal if you take an existing approach you merely recreate it so there might be flown using r p equipment procedures you get procedures and in doing so create very little benefit we support the emphasis on measuring the benefits of new r and p procedures as included in the senate's f a a reauthorization bill we should increase the rate of r and d procedure deployment and have metrics to ensure their effectiveness our m p offers substantial environmental benefits it's estimated that our m p has the potential to cut global sales to emissions by thirteen million metric tons that's one point two billion gallons of fuel this is a very important path to energy independence oddly enough one of the factors slowing down the proliferation of r p procedure says the environment because the r p path differs from the path of the previous instrument approach there's some question as to whether the environmental impact statement is required to determine the impact of new r m p pat while this is a valid concern there are many and there are in immediate ways that beneficial are people have can be designed that will not require environmental review in particular our m p routes could be designed in a way that replicate the routes taken by aircraft on visual approaches over the same track of ground the benefits of aren't clear very clear so what should we do we think we should accelerate the creation of high quality r and p procedures that use aircraft performance to drive efficiency we think the second thing we need to create metrics for success and measure approaches based on their efficiency third what do you need to accelerate the movement toward for dimension trajectory based operations and add time as an element of the approach design and force we need to integrate the efforts around communications navigation and surveillance surveillance so that there's one strategy and one vision we think the time is now to work together for the benefit of the environment the airline and the flying public thank you very much for your time chair thank you mr fuller now recognizes captain  you castelo ranking member of p try and members of the subcommittee my name is jeff martin i'm the senior director of flight operations and captain for southwest airlines since two thousand and six i have been directing southwest next gen program training our nearly six thousand pilots and equipping more than five hundred boeing seven thirty seven aircraft in r and p and associated next gen efforts like southwest r and d project is unique in march of two thousand and seven southwest made an unprecedented commitment of one hundred  seventy five million dollars to advance next june and make our m p an integral part of our day to day operations southwest based our business plan and set the standard for our return on investment by determining that we need to reduce our flight track miles by three miles per leg reducing flight track miles burns less fuel fuel is an airline's highest cost behind labor so there is a natural incentive for airlines to reduce fuel burn that also translates into reduced aircraft emissions and lower fuel costs southwest next gen r p project can be broken down into four distinct work areas one aircraft equipage and modification each of our five hundred aircraft required some equipment modification that consumed over eighty percent of our next gen budget today sixty six percent of our fleet is r m p capable and we will complete our remaining modifications within four years to f a a regulatory approval for two years southwest has been working with the f a a towards achieving regulatory approval we learned last night that we received f a a approval from the f a a to proceed to our next level of our m p certification three pilot training training is already underway but developing that curriculum took nineteen months and consume thirteen percent of our budget and fourth and last airport procedures southwest is working closely with the f a a to assist in the design of new arm p five procedures our goal is to have at least one carbon negative or n p procedure and each of the airports we serve much like chicago's midway airport as you can see on the screen it's safe at the conflicts to airports it reduces fuel and reduces emissions a recent audit of our airport procedures revealed that we have four hundred twelve runway ins that we serve of these four hundred  twelve runway ends sixty nine aren't the procedures currently exist of the sixty nine procedures six would reduce fuel and reduce emissions from start to finish southwest r p program will take six years in addition to time and money it is required focus project oversight and considerable attention to human factors such as education and training as mentioned aren't the benefits the environment benefits the consumer that effects the carrier by using available technologies like aren't the implementation next and can be accelerated if implemented correctly and widely throughout the national aviation system aren't people one strengthen our environment by greatly reducing the amount of fuel we consume greenhouse gases w provide our customers with less congestion and fewer delays and three improve safety and operational performance of the commercial aviation industry based on southwest airlines own demonstration flights are and p can reduce fuel burn carbon dioxide emissions by as much as six percent per flight translating those same things across our entire fleet we can burn ninety point six million less gallons of fuel and reduce our c o two emissions by one point nine billion pounds annually southwest airlines june success is dependent on industry and government working together we've worked closely with the f a a from day one and we continue to have quarterly meetings with the f a a administrator f a a administrator randy babbitt said and i quote we must take advantage of what operators already have invested arnav and r and p work we know that with the airlines in the economy still looking at a steep climb the return on investment is even more important southwest airlines could not agree more achieving return on investment is necessary to justify continued next gen efforts let me conclude with lessons learned during the past three years our airline has been fully engaged and committed to our next gen project we've already equipped over three hundred aircraft have a complete our pilot training by two thousand and ten developing and implementing our impi project is without doubt one of the most complicated time consuming and expensive projects of southwest airlines undertaken in order for the industry in the public to achieve the full benefits of r p is a company on the f a a to design and implement flight procedures like those in chicago's midway airport for next june to succeed f a a airlines and other stakeholders in this all be in sync existing regulations and guidelines from the sixties and seventies need to be updated or to utilize and benefit from next gen capabilities and technology successful use of arms next gen requires one definable return on investment two and if this is on the quality of the procedure not just meeting the quota for production and three mandate to design and implement new flight procedures that will reduce airline emissions in fuel burn southwest airlines is proud to be leading the industry in deploying our five hundred aircraft into next gen our space thank you for this opportunity to testify and share our thoughts and wholly owned subsidiary of the boeing company based near denver and englewood colorado for more than seventy five years our company's been the premier provider of navigation charts databases and other information solutions to the general aviation business aviation and the previous testimony we've heard a lot about what our m p is please allow me to show you visualize what it what we're talking about so what we're looking up here is a to read dish and all approach these traditional approaches are typically based upon land based navigation or or waypoints off those land based navigation there's a large buffers around terrain in obstacles and restricted airspace there's a complex network obviously of the space navigational facilities and typically an approach procedures pilots do what we call a dive and drive procedure where we hit and we had a waypoint or we hit one of these navigational aids reduce power and we come down and that's how in this case we we make a descent into the airport and for the landing where we catch the eye less or the localize a dive and drive procedure is not very fuel efficient nor is it environmentally friendly now vast majority of the instrument approaches in the world today are flown according to this design philosophy this is well established very safe but we all agree it's near its maximum capability in terms of efficiency carbon emissions and capacity so let me let me show you mr chairman now what the future looks like let's look at r and b so this is an arm t production again as we've talked already in testimony to satellite based navigation based on g p s with on get nav performance monitoring our m p of course requires special certifications with the pilot the airplane close coordination obviously with a there's training and equipment the captain weren't talked about but it gives us a lot greater design flexibility it allows us to do curved path approaches stabilize continuous descent which is safer because pilots i think the pilots in this room would disagree  or agree it gives us a lot more situational awareness as we're flying stabilized approach is rather than dive and drive and it puts us in this very confined and contained and safe containment cord or so i don't want to do this and we've talked about this throughout the panel but one of the biggest one obviously to pilots in this committee and us is safety it allows us to provide these stable approaches that allows us to get away from this no dive and drive that can simulate continuous descent approaches pilots obviously agree with agree that this is a safer method it gives us protection an engine out emergencies and terrain limited areas with the with very precise navigation requirement it's environmentally friendly as we've already heard admissions reductions noise reductions is critical not only for the aviation community the business and generally the ation community but the military community as well and of course we've heard about the financial savings we get fuel savings as we have less path that we travel over the ground we get fuel savings as we have more of an idle approach to this and that allows the airlines to have greater utilization every minute that they can shave off of a flight is another minute they can put in productive service aren t  critical part of next generation the f a a has built over one hundred forty r and p procedures at forty two airports and as we've heard some of the procedures do not provide desired benefit of time or lower minimums to allow us to get in only fifteen to twenty five percent of the aircraft design are right now are equipped to use r and d and we need continued justification for the airlines to equip like southwest in alaska and that's by building more procedures and allowing  p to more airlines to participate in and take it take advantage we need more procedures and third party providers like jeppesen can complement and partner and work side by side with the f a a in order to give us more capacity however we do feel that the f a a should conduct ongoing maintenance of procedures once they're built there's no one better equipped no one with a greater core competency to understand our national airspace system then the a and so like we're doing currently at jefferson another other providers we work every day side by side with the published approaches for the airlines around the world working with the f a a and we we suggest we continue to have that great working relationship so in summary r and p is a vital part of next gen this picture up here is lindsay china very complex terrain approach that we designed in china it's a technology that's ready now we don't need to reinvent the wheel but we do need to do is continue to work together government and industry to make this a reality thank you mr chairman i'd be happy to answer your questions chair thank you mr chairman and recognizes captain beck thank you chairman castello and ranking member to try and members of the subcommittee my name is gary back i'm the vice president of flight operations for alaska airlines i came to alaska airlines from delta airlines where i served as senior vice president of flight operations and cheap pilot i'm pleased to testified today on behalf of the air transport association and i offer alaska airlines unique experience with perspective on r m p technology my testimony today will focus on three key points first point our m p is proven technology alaska airlines has a relatively long history with our m p technology having pioneered its use during the mid one nine hundred ninety s to improve safety and reliability of our flights operating into and out of juneau alaska an airport that's known for its bad weather and challenging mountainous terrain the first aren't the guided flight path was used by alaska airlines to land in juneau in one thousand nine hundred six as many of you know r m p enable their cap to fly more direct routes with pinpoint accuracy and reduces diversions due to weather by using onboard navigation technology and the global positioning system satellite network improve safety and reliability in all weather conditions and reduces reliance on ground based navigational aids you could say that the rough terrain and equally rough weather in the state of alaska gave the company the business case to invest early innovative technology that could help us more reliably and safely serve communities throughout the state in doing so our corporate leaders then took a risk in being the first major u s air carrier to invest in our m p and unproven technology at that time we believe that risk was one worth taking today we are the only major domestic air carrier with completely our m p equipped fleet and fully trained crews in addition to our m p our all boeing seven thirty seven fleet is also one hundred percent equipped with other modern safety technology including the heads up guidance system which allows takeoffs and landings of the lowest minimum weather conditions certified by the f a a as well as the runway awareness and advisory or  raf system a key tool in alleviating runway incursions alaska is the first u s passenger carrier to install ras on all of its aircraft since that first our impi flight into juneau in the mid one nine hundred ninety s alaska  launched our m p procedures in partnership and with the approval of the f a a into palm springs san francisco portland oregon and cities throughout the state of alaska alaska airlines is also the first carrier to use our m p precision technology to land aircraft at reagan national airport right here in washington d c having worked with the f a a after nine eleven on the development of the reagan procedures recognizing the safety and environmental advantages of our m p approaches and worked diligently to make the r m p procedures publicly available to all airlines that operate at reagan national in total alaska airlines currently has r m p approaches available to us at twenty three airports throughout our system nine of which we developed with the coordination and approval of the f a a in another first on the our m p from last december the f a a approved alaska airlines to become the first us commercial air carrier to conduct its own r m p flight validation laying the groundwork for faster procedure approvals second point r and p saves time fuel and emissions the numbers speak for themselves for example in two thousand and eight alaska airlines used r m p procedures twelve thousand three hundred eight times one thousand seven hundred seventy four of these were called saves a save is defined as an operation that would not have been completed if our m p were not available in other words the flight would either have been cancelled or diverted in doing so we saved one and a half million gallons of fuel which equates to a savings of approximately seventeen thousand metric tons of c o two emissions in addition we realize savings of seventeen million dollars in operating costs third our m p is a key tool in the next gen modernization effort the original purpose of our m p was to provide guidance to runways without navaids and to reduce minimums however our m p is now taking a new path as part of the next gen effort the same technology can and should be used to enhance capacity and create more efficient approach and departure paths in order for the operational and environmental benefits of these more efficient bags to be  implement new standards and procedures that enable the technology to be fully utilized for example the f a a must develop new reduced separation standards to take advantage of our m p s technological capabilities at sea tac airport in seattle alaska airlines is leading an effort in partnership with the f a a the boeing company the port of seattle and southwest airlines he was armed in just that way to create more efficient paths that will reduce flight path length and in turn reduce time in the air fuel consumption emissions and noise this sea tac project is leading edge on the r and d front and that involves the use of our m p in complex airspace requiring air traffic to be sequenced in space at altitude as opposed to in the terminal space the lessons learned from and the benefits of the sea tac project can be replicated at major airports across the country the benefits are impressive carriers equipped to fly these procedures at sea tac will say more than two million gallons of fuel per year which equates to an annual savings of twenty two thousand four hundred metric tons of c o two emissions the airline industry and the f a a should be leveraging the use of existing technology as much as possible to create a space efficiencies and reduce aviation's impact on the environment that really is the mission of next gen alaska airlines is proud to continue our history of technological innovation in our use of our m p s sea tac we look forward to replicating the benefits of this project for all equip users at airports across the country across the board that the role of the third parties is currently unclear and while the vision for the uses on the development of public procedures as well as special procedures that would benefit specific carriers we call into question how well thought out a business case that is and to what extent they will be used first thing that has to happen out of formalized oversight structure is you need to know who you're overseeing and what you're asking them to do so my short answer to this is we need to step back we need to rethink the role of the third parties will play them we have to recognize what it is we're asking them to do we have to do an in house assessment of our own capabilities and skill sets to oversee what we've been asking them to do we need to have metrics in place to measure the ability to achieve the goals and we need to do that on a continual basis and the final thing that i would add is that it's not achieving the larger  mixed capabilities the next procedures the number one thing i wouldn't want to know is how big is that mix and what is that mix and what is coming at me and what do i have to be aware of to do my job to ensure safe and efficient flights  this is this is an issue we need to understand what the new routes are going to be what the new procedures are get are going to be who is equipped with what and all the players and all the stakeholders including the controllers need to be aware of that they also then need to be properly trained to handle the uniqueness of these routes and these features and they have to have the tools to do so thank you mr bradley you educating your  chairman yes i believe the as we just stated part of the the difficulty with everyone coming to grips with is or getting on the same page is differences over what priorities there may be  how new procedures will fit into the overall system and right now i don't believe the agency has a comprehensive plan that stakeholders have bought into that they've been part of i think everyone needs to understand what the priorities are for the overall nasa and then develop a plan on how to get there everyone can just be in a russ and that's that's where we have concern with the best equipped best service philosophy at the it sounds good but that doesn't necessarily take the agency where it needs to go if everything could transition overnight and that's one thing but since it's going to be a phase evolution it has to be done in a logical thoughtful manner in a way that best suits the needs of the overall nasa and the flying public so that may cause conflict with different constituents priorities but that i think has to be grappled with in a plan has to be developed to address that as much as possible thank you captain martin you say that the f a a must  rollout plan we have done a cross inventory against the roadmap and if the f a a meets their plan for the placement that meets our return on investment so we completely support the f a a so we pre planned rollout but our definition of useful is any procedure that we find a safe efficient carbon negative in assessable so good chere now recognizes the ranking member mr peter thank you very much i appreciate the effort that went into each of your statements and the complete statements of course are part of the record i wonder if there's one area that was a theme in many of your remarks and that is  that there's seems to be something of a choke point in going through the environmental clearance procedures for these variable more efficient routes the airports and you know i sit here listening think myself well if you had an environmental impact requirement and the rule here these is more efficient routes save time fuel and reduce emissions overall so is the rule that you're supposed to achieve environmental efficiency impact causing overall environmental inefficiency and it's something wrong here with this procedure because with more flexible routes and changes and having to approve all of them it's delaying efficiency in the overall system and it's counterproductive could you come i meant on that end is there some way we can stand back and figure out a more efficient approach to achieve the legitimate goals of these environmental requirements and really achieve them rather than say we're meeting a formal requirement in fact what we're doing is causing more pollution and and use of fuel and all the all the rest of it who would care to comment maybe mr fuller sir i'll start you know if you think about the approval process and think about rolling out what we think are thousands of approaches that take into account aircraft performance in order to gain efficiency we have to think about defining the process start to finish that can be achieved and repeated very quickly and robustly and then i think that the organizations responsible for approving the approaches have absolutely got to be engaged in the in the machine in the factory that pretty that produces these approaches the environmental impact piece of it needs to be approached what i would consider rationally against a balance of constraints in other words if if you know if twenty percent of your approaches are flying the ground track as described by visual approach we don't understand the need for really reevaluating the veyron model impact if they're roughly approximately the same track over the ground they take into account evidently noise and emissions right in that area they don't take into account fuel savings time savings overall improvements to the environment that aren't related to those two factors so it's have a weird  thing it pretends to be an environmental impact statement it's really not in my backyard for people who live near airports requirements that's i can tell it most it could be any other comments  forward is to look at the national or space system and when we look at these areas look at an integrated approach to these performance based procedures so that as we look at the impact on the environment we're looking at adjacent airports and air space and we can show the overall effect or savings as far as fuel and noise and the impact on the environment and on the communities so we believe that making the shift from looking at individual procedures looking more at regions and more of an integrated system in the communities we can streamline the procedure and be good stewards of the environment at the same time confused as to what we're really talking about and today for the first time we're talking about something very concrete and so i think all of the panelists i'm curious to know i commend southwestern alaska for taking the lead i wondering why it is that other airlines such as united american northwest why they have not proceeded to implement our m p says that saves money fuel lowers carbon foot int efficiency is sounds really good anybody care to opine that person sorry mr day certainly it's tough times for the airlines and they do have to make difficult choices in this environment i think everyone is committed and sees the value of these performance based procedures in the larger next gen system as we look at other capabilities and operational improvements but they are oftentimes faced with very difficult decisions we are absolutely delighted that we've had such champions and early adopters as alaska airlines and  american and delta and most recently southwest to be those leaders and we do think from these measurable benefits the doctors described we will excite and show the business case around making an investment in this capability for for these airlines are some of the other did you want to say something i would like i would also just like to add that in order to invest that kind of money in the types of avionics that these carriers would be required to put on their aircraft they have to be assured at some point that the routes and the airspace has been aligned in order to maximize those benefits so if i was buying a system i would want to make sure that i have an environment in which that system would be able to return its investment and right now i think with what we've learned the vision that f a a has currently on the books is just overlays of what was the traditional ground based radar system very encouraged to hear mr de say that they're taking a step back and they're thinking about ways to maximize the airspace i think once that done you may see other carriers willing to step up and say now it's time to put that kind of money into those high cost avionics i think i can realize the benefit i think that makes a lot of sense to me mr davis does if a have some kind of a time frame in which they can put in place the kind of procedures and basically i guess the procedures so that other airlines can you know make these kinds of decisions moving forward  so first of all we've been on track with our flight plan and also from the recommendations from the performance based aviation role making committee to deploy procedures and from the community we're gathering interest and a desire to really move out quicker in putting those procedures of value that let's all have measurable benefits and solve real operational problems so we have the next gen office and the integration implementation office which is responsible to help to integrate all of these operational improvements and as i mentioned before we are making a shift from just production to looking at the national airspace system and geographical areas and when we go in there looking at the air space the airports including the satellite airports from the air transport airports and taking a redesign of the air space so that we really can provide value in the benefit of having not only the vertical integrity of the well you know the i my time is about to run out so i'm glad that you're taking a comprehensive approach but what kind of timeframe are you talking about i don't want to rush things away that's not what we're talking about i understand the testimony this is we're not just wanting to have numbers here we want to have qualitative improvements so is there a time frame for you to put these in place so that more airlines can use this kind of system yes ma'am we have the next gen integration plan that we have now we also have in august we'll be getting the recommendations from the next gen mid term implementation passports which has over three hundred participants and we expect them to make recommendations that are actionable for us to give that client of clarity and focus to our steps moving forward mr bradley as i'm about to sure thanks general a d n r recognizes the gentle lady from ohio ms smith thank you and i really appreciate to castella for holding this hearing like many on this subcommittee i've spent a great deal of time looking at ways to stop the flight delays that we're seeing and there are many causes and i think one of the ways we can easily stop the delays is technology and next gen and everyone on this p has opened my eyes to the potential and the problems i'm going to focus my question to mr fuller first and anyone else that would like to answer simply because mr fuller represents my community general electric is in my community the headquarters is just outside my district but they test plan