Cody Dennison

Thought Paper
My opinion is that traffic management is the hardest thing to control in the national
airspace system. All of the planes have slots at airports for landing and departing. Each time a
plane takes off it has to be controlled and watched by controllers. I believe this is the most
difficult and complicated part of the whole system keeping everyone safe in the sky.
Reasons, I believe that traffic management is the most difficult part of the national
airspace system is because they have to control thousands of planes that are up in the sky and
coordinate who can take off and when they can so there are no collisions. Also they have to
determine the different approaches departures and holding procedures and how to get planes
from the en route environment into the airport environment and on the ground. It is a very
complex system but works really good.
According to the article I read on NBAA they found this to be a very complex system
that is operated by many different strategic strategies in order to keep the whole system operating
effectively. The national air space system is all ran by the controllers and traffic flow
management, if something were to happen to a control facility there would be utter chaos. The
article also was saying how traffic flow is very difficult to determine because of delays
shutdowns and many other problems. They all cause problems to the system.
Overall I do believe that traffic flow management is the most difficult part of the national
air space system. With thousands of planes flying everyday taking off and landing all over the
world they all have to be controlled and handled by many different controllers and after being in
this class I believe this is the most complex system out there.