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Forecasting Aviation Activity by Airport

FAA Operations & Performance Data annually publishes the Terminal Area Forecast. This forecast contains historical aviation activity data and FAA's forecasts for airports receiving FAA and contract tower services. They also include projections for other airports in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems(NPIAS). These forecasts project the activity of four major U.S. air traffic system users: air carriers, commuters/air taxi, general aviation, and the military, as well as passenger enplanements. The FAA uses these forecasts to meet its budget and planning needs. Airport sponsors, state and local aviation authorities, others in the aviation industry, and the public are welcome to use these forecasts.

As an assistance to airport planning consultants and agency airport planners APO has published a document entitled Forecasting Aviation Activity by Airport (MS Word). This document was prepared by GRA, Incorporated in July 2001, and is available to the public on FAA's Aviation Data & Statistics Internet web page under the Airlines & Reports heading.

We receive an action memorandum annually from APO, around the end of July, requesting our review of their draft forecasts. The "Forecasting Aviation Activity by Airport" document describes this review process as follows:

STEP 7. COMPARE AIRPORT PLANNING FORECAST RESULTS WITH TAF

Approval of airport planning forecasts by the FAA for adoption into the TAF involves comparison to the TAF projections. Approval of forecasts for benefit-cost or environmental purposes may involve more complex review than what is suggested below.

There is guidance on the FAA review process in FAA Order 5090.3C, Field Formulation of the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) (PDF). The part of the order relevant to the review process, Chapter 3. Airfield Development, Section 3-2, Forecasts, paragraph b., states:

"Forecasts supplied by the airport sponsor should not vary significantly (more than 10%) from the FAA's forecast. When a sponsor's forecast does vary significantly from the FAA's forecast, the sponsor's methodology should be verified, the forecast coordinated with APO-110, and only after the difference is resolved and the FAA is satisfied that the sponsor's forecast is valid will sponsor's forecast be included in the NPIAS. In the absence of other forecast information, data from FAA's forecast are included in the NPIAS database. When FAA forecast data are not available (usually a proposed airport) the master plan forecast should be validated against FAA's regional forecasts, and if appropriate, coordinated with APO-110."

In essence, then, FAA will find an airport planning forecast generally acceptable if the 5-year, 10-year, and 15-year forecast levels for the airport forecast and the TAF are within 10 percent of each other. The relevant parameters that should come within 10 percent are total airport operations, total commercial operations, and total enplanements. It should be emphasized that if the proposed airport forecast exceeds the TAF by more than 10 percent and is considered valid on FAA review, it will be incorporated into the TAF and NPIAS.

In order to facilitate the process of approving a forecast, FAA also suggests completion of the template shown in Appendix C. This would facilitate review of an airport planning forecast for incorporation into the TAF and NPIAS and for reviews in conjunction with benefit-cost analyses.

The template covers the key forecast elements and calculates the percentage differences between the airport planning forecast and the TAF. An Excel worksheet of Appendix C (MS Excel) is available on the FAA APO website from the link in the cover page of this document (MS Word).

Review and Approval of Aviation Forecasts

The Director of Airport Planning and Programming, APP-1, published a Revision to Guidance on Review and Approval of Aviation Forecasts (PDF) dated December 23, 2004. This document is also available from our national Planning & Capacity page and provides important information on the procedures to follow when resolving differences between the TAF and local forecasts greater than ten percent in the 1 to 5 year period, and fifteen percent in the 6 to 10 year period.