**GAO-01-932**                      Published: Aug 31, 2001. Publicly Released: Sep 28, 2001.                  

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## Highlights

This report reviews the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) progress on implementing the Free Flight Program, which would provide more flexibility in air traffic operations.  This program would increase collaboration between FAA and the aviation community. By using a set of new automated technologies (tools) and procedures, free flight is intended to increase the capacity and efficiency of the nation's airspace system while helping to minimize delays. GAO found that the scheduled March 2002 date will be too early for FAA to make an informed investment decision about moving to phase 2 of its Free Flight Program because of significant technical and operational issues. Furthermore, FAA's schedule for deploying these tools will not allow enough time to collect enough data to fully analyze their expected benefits. Currently, FAA lacks enough data to demonstrate that these tools can be relied upon to provide accurate data.

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## Topics

Transportation

Air traffic control systemsAir transportationAviationData collectionFree flight enhancementAircraft acquisition programAir trafficAirportsTraffic managementAirspace system