Analysis Methodology of Weather-Driven Airspace Flow Programs

Weather impacts air traffic operations by reducing the airspace capacity that air traffic control can use to process traffic. In this paper, a general framework for systematic comparison of weather-related air traffic management challenges originally developed for airports is extended to en route airspace using Jacksonville air traffic control center as an example. A case day in June of 2023 is presented to illustrate the framework and to identify times of under-used airspace capacity from historical data. The role of advanced decision-support tools based on weather models to take advantage of potential missed opportunities for fully utilizing available capacity is also discussed in the paper.