Hearing Before the Senate Commerce Committee

Subcommittee on Aviation

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization

March 22, 2007

Testimony of Karen Lee

Director of Operations, UPS Airlines

 

            Chairman Rockefeller, Senator Lott and members of the committee, my name is Karen Lee and I am Director of Operations at UPS Airlines.  Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning on air traffic modernization and what we at UPS have been doing over the last 10 years with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B).   We believe that modernization of our current aviation system should be the major priority in the FAA Reauthorization this year.  Our efforts on ADS-B demonstrate the benefits that modernization will provide.

 

            UPS has been committed to the development and implementation of ADS-B systems and applications for over 10 years.  ADS-B is a satellite-based surveillance technology that allows each aircraft to broadcast information about itself such as position, speed and altitude.  It does this continuously, as often as once per second, and this surveillance information is available to any user equipped to receive and display it.

 

            UPS, along with the Cargo Airline Association, first became involved with ADS-B in 1996 as a potential means of meeting collision avoidance requirements.  Although we ultimately installed T-CAS in order to meet those requirements, our early work with ADS-B demonstrated many potential benefits, such as improved efficiency and safety, as well as environmental benefits.  As a result, UPS continued its work on the technology. 

 

            Use of ADS-B technology creates a new level of safety and redundancy in our airspace system since pilots will now be able to see the traffic around them and controllers will have surveillance data that is much more accurate and timely than they have today.  There are many applications that are enabled when aircraft are equipped to see other aircraft.  Many of those applications create opportunities to make aircraft operations safer and more efficient while reducing noise and emissions.

 

            ADS-B is now recognized as the foundation of the Next Generation Air Traffic System.  Administrator Blakey has been a strong proponent of ADS-B and has been very supportive of the efforts we have undertaken at our international air hub in Louisville, Kentucky.

 

            There are two basic scenarios in which ADS-B surveillance can be very beneficial.  The first is in geographic areas that do not have radar surveillance.  ADS-B surveillance information can be provided from the aircraft to air traffic controllers through inexpensive ground receiving stations and shown on a display that looks exactly like a radar display.  Controllers use the ADS-B surveillance data exactly the same way they would use radar information; it just comes to them directly from the aircraft.

 

            You are probably familiar with the FAA Capstone project in Alaska where more than 250 light aircraft are equipped to broadcast ADS-B position information.  Using ADS-B, Alaska has reduced its accident rate by 47 percent and has done so in areas that radar could not be installed because of rugged terrain.

 

            The second scenario is in high density airspace.  Let’s use Louisville as an example.  During the UPS rush hour, from 11:00 at night until 1:30 in the morning, we can land 47-52 aircraft per hour.  We should be able to land 60-62 aircraft per hour in most weather conditions.  Our inability to do so represents a loss of capacity and efficiency that costs us millions of dollars every year.

 

            Our traffic arrives somewhat randomly and the flow and sequence of arriving aircraft is unpredictable.  The enroute center directs our aircraft into the terminal area as they arrive from all directions and the approach controllers then must organize and sequence the aircraft to line up for final approach.  Our flights end up “driving” around at low, highly inefficient altitudes while waiting for their turn for landing – sometimes flying 60 or 70 miles to travel the last 40 miles of flight.

 

            In addition, due to high controller workload and lack of shared traffic information with our pilots, our flights arrive at the runways with very uneven spacing.  If you were to stand at the end of the runway and measure the time between landing aircraft, you would find a high level of variation – 90 seconds, then 105 seconds, then 80 seconds, then 180 seconds and so on.  What we really need is 95 seconds, 95 seconds, 95 seconds (or the appropriate time interval for the night’s conditions – it is variable).  Anything more than that interval is loss of capacity.   And because our aircraft arrive somewhat randomly and unpredictably and all under radar vectors, they are scattered over a wide area as they enter the terminal area – making the controller’s job that much more difficult to get us organized and lined up.

 

            This is very similar to every busy airport in the world.  Some are worse than others, but all capacity and efficiency losses are driven by the same factors: less than perfect surveillance information, each aircraft handled individually by a controller to be sequenced, each aircraft spaced and vectored to final approach and pilots who are blind to traffic around them.  This results in wide variations in spacing on final approach and much higher fuel burns.

 

            We are on the verge of a major milestone in the effort to become more efficient and to optimize the airspace capacity available to us.  There is a wonderful convergence of emerging technologies and procedures that have created the dawn of a new era in aviation – indeed created the dawn of the next generation air transportation system.

 

            In July we will fly the world’s first Next Gen RNAV Continuous Descent Arrival procedures using an ADS-B application called merging and spacing.  This will mark the first time that pilots will be given responsibility for spacing their aircraft, at very accurate time intervals, using ADS-B surveillance information in the cockpit from cruise altitude all the way to the runway.  The goal is to accurately, consistently and precisely deliver our aircraft to the end of the runways, in the most efficient way possible, in almost all weather conditions, night after night.  When we accomplish this, we anticipate we will save over 800,000 gallons of fuel annually, reduce our noise footprint by 30 percent and our emissions by 34 percent below 3000 feet, and increase the capacity of our airport by 15-20 percent or more.

 

            We are confident of our success for several reasons.  ADS-B technology is maturing rapidly.  In fact, UPS has 107 Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft equipped with a first generation system and has accumulated thousands of hours of experience using the simple, but powerful application of Enhanced See and Avoid.  We have seen significant improvements in our operations at Louisville as a result of this implementation and have gathered enough experience to validate our next implementation this year.

 

            Our air traffic controllers are willing partners in our ADS-B work and have enjoyed benefits by working with us.  We have a wide base of industry support and have worked closely with FAA and others throughout this project.  Our pilots have enjoyed the early benefits of enhanced situational awareness and traffic displays in the cockpit for several years now and are actively involved in the preparation for the next steps in 2007.  And, as I have mentioned, Administrator Blakey and the FAA are moving forward with ADS-B plans in the United States and are a strong ally in this effort.

 

            Although aircraft equipage is always seen as an obstacle to progress, we believe that the architecture we are implementing is very practical.  We are using one set of hardware to house several different applications.  The electronic flight bag provided by Boeing will allow us to provide electronic charts and manuals for our pilots, electronic logbooks for maintenance, graphic satellite weather for inflight use, and a display for CPDLC for datalink communications with ATC in the future.  The same display used for all of those applications will also be used for ADS-B applications, the first of which is the Continuous Descent Arrivals using merging and spacing.

 

            It will also house a very important safety enhancement: a moving surface map with traffic for ground operations.  Studies show that the threat of most runway incursions and potential ground collisions will be solved by using the surface map with traffic.

 

            We all have a major challenge ahead in transforming and modernizing the best aviation system in the world.  We must do this in order to provide the capacity needed to accommodate future growth, to provide an additional margin of safety and to achieve the environmental improvement that is required.  We believe that ADS-B will be the foundation for the modernized system.

 

            Thank you and I am pleased to answer any questions you may have.