Flights were being held in anticipation of bad weather that did not materialize, he says. Jack Kies, the FAA's chief air traffic tactician, says some airlines added to problems by not keeping the agency informed during bad weather days. If an airline canceled flights but did not tell the FAA, other flights could not take their place. Taking steps After the dust settled last October, the FAA sponsored a one-week critique of the summer. Virtually everyone agreed that individual controllers and airline employees who plan flight routes occasionally made delays worse.
Controllers holding jets in the wrong place can make dozens of other flights late.
To avoid that kind of mistake, the FAA has trained more than 3,000 air traffic managers, controllers and airline dispatchers. By May 15, it will have trained all 15,000 controllers. Airlines say they want greater freedom to send jets toward banks of thunderstorms so that pilots can use their on-board weather radar to find openings to fly through. The FAA agreed, provided that jets can safely pass through gaps. The FAA realized that it needed to be better prepared to reroute flights quickly.