Air traffic controllers are sending the aircraft south around the south side of the weather system right into the flight path your flight from DFW to Washington. These large numbers of aircraft going south of this weather are not usually down this far south and are mixed in with the normal flow of aircraft in the area. Sector Saturation Sector saturation occurs when there are too many aircraft for the controller to safely handle at any given time. Airspace in air traffic control is broken down into intricate sectors of airspace in which controllers work their assigned sector. These sectors work like a ballet passing aircraft through to one another and safely keeping them separated.
Some sectors can be very large in size.
Sectors can be 40 to 50 miles across and can sometimes be as large as 150 to 200 miles. You can have a lot of aircraft in these areas at one time, therefore making it very complex. This is all complicated by weather deviations by aircraft. When sectors become this busy, they are effectively closed out to other aircraft in order to regain the stability of the sector. This whole situation is monitored by an overlooking group of controllers called Flow Control.