Air Traffic Management Concept Baseline Definition - The Boeing ...

exchange of traffic rights.” (Donne (1995), pp. 47-49). Related potential disruptive issues
include global market access, where an open skies policy for international operations is not
yet considered feasible, especially when slot allocations are limited, foreign investment in
another sovereign state’s airlines raises ownership and control concerns, and the over 900
different taxes worldwide imposed on the industry creates an added economic burden on
airlines (ibid, pp. 50-51).
In the area of environmental considerations, the affect of world air transport has,
according to IATA, been less severe than other modes of transportation. However,
tougher standards are being proposed which may add to developmental costs incurred by
the airline industry (ibid, pp. 161-162).
The future affects of alternatives to air travel seem to be relatively secure. Various forms
of innovative electronic communication have been, and may well be in the future, less
severe than some reports have suggested. Video-conferencing, for example, seems to have
some impact on reductions in air traffic only during economic recessions when
businessmen forego travel expenses during these periods. From an efficiency point of
view, such high-tech communications and information technologies do not directly
compete with air travel (ibid, pp. 85-87).
A number of potential drawbacks exist, however, with the proposed GPS and satellitebased
navigation on the use of airspace. First, several ICAO member states have been
vocal in their reluctance to accept a GPS-based satellite navigation system, primarily
because GPS is U.S.-owned and currently managed by the DOD. They are also concerned
that the U.S. may unilaterally degrade the GPS signal accuracy for precision guidance
(Booz, Allen & Hamilton (1995), pp. 3-94, 3-95). Much work has been conducted by the
international community to develop and implement a GNSS, which may not include GPS
(ibid, p. 3-49). Moreover, uncertainties associated with GPS (and other) satellite-based
navigation include system availability and integrity especially crucial during precision
approaches in poor weather conditions (ibid, pp. 3-53, 3-58).
Not only the space segment poses potential constraints for the future ATC/ATM
operations in NAS or other airspace. The ATC architecture may itself be a source of
potential problems. If current software practices continue (such as heterogeneous
communications protocols and data formats, and multiple application languages), costly
software maintenance of the many (e.g. 54 operational ATC systems written in 53
programming languages) fragmented ATC systems would be the result in the future (U.S.
GAO AIMD-97-30 (1997), pp. 40-46). No FAA organization is responsible for the
problem of technical ATC architecture creating the potential proliferation of an
uncoordinated ATC software architecture development process affecting the future ATC
modernization effort (ibid, pp. 47-54).
The disruption and delay of traffic flow may also be generated from ground handling
processes. For example, due to increased mix of international passengers, delays may be
caused by increasing volume of visa processing. This could be especially acute in a
possible future of heightened political instabilities which would create stricter measures to
control the flow of immigrants and foreign travelers (Booz, Allen & Hamilton (1995), p.
148). Another future risk associated with ground handling concern health requirements of
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