Tarmac delay surveillance and mitigation system: Requirements analysis for NextGen

Several widely publicized incidents, in which passengers remained on an aircraft on the tarmac for up to 11 hours prompted the Department of Transportation (DOT) to issue a new rule designed to provide consumer protection to airline passengers. The rule mandates water/food/amenities for passengers on a plane for two hours, and an option to deplane after three hours. The rule also stipulates that airlines develop internal, auditable plans to meet the two/three hour clauses, and to report tarmac delays to the government for causal analysis. The underlying premise of the rule is that causal analysis (and incentives of fines) will enable elimination of the phenomenon. This approach assumes that the issue is not inherent to the design of the system-of-systems (e.g. span-of-control and availability of information), and that phenomenon that occur in-the-tails of the distribution are homogeneous and have finite causes. An analysis of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders involved in the Tarmac Delay phenomenon identified "gaps" in the authority and availability of information to critical stakeholders that are inherent to the "design" of the "system." Further, since the Tarmac Delay phenomena occurs in-the-tails of the distribution, it is not likely that the causal analysis will eliminate this phenomenon in a reasonable time-frame. An alternate approach is to provide a "safety-net" tool to stop the gap. The requirements for the tool, described in this paper, perform real-time operations oversight by monitoring flights on the tarmac and identifying those flights that are forecast to exceed time thresholds (e.g. two/three hours). With access to the tool, stakeholders with the authority can take mitigation actions. A prototype, web-based, tool is described. The implications of this approach to rule making are discussed.