Operationally significant weather: Convective forecasts prompting reroute operations

The interconnectedness of departure and arrival operations serving multiple top tier airports in the New York area limits departure path possibilities when weather impacts the airspace. As a result, significant convective impacts requires traffic flows to be shifted between pre-established routes to safely depart traffic. This technique, called rerouting, enables continuous departure throughput even during extended, severe impacts in this complex airspace. Implementing a Reroute Operation, however, is a significant effort requiring time for coordination and implementation making it inefficient for managing light traffic or minor impacts where less structured convective avoidance tactics suffice. Therefore, accurate, extended forecasts, and knowledge of which forecasted impacts are beneficially addressed by Reroute Operations are necessary to identify and implement the procedure successfully and efficiently. This paper quantitatively examines Reroute Operations in the NY Metro area during May through September for the years 2012-2014 to assess the severity and duration of impacts with departure rates to identify important factors for initiating a Reroute Operations. Route Availability Planning Tool (RAPT) [1] blockage information was used to provide weather impact metrics (in 5-minute increments along each route) and Aircraft Situation Display to Industry (ASDI) data were used to supply traffic rerouting and throughput information. The paper ends with recommendations for improved Reroute Operation decision making.