US FAA to deploy software to reduce airport delays

The FAA said Tuesday it plans to deploy a new software capability to reduce taxi times and ramp congestion for flights at 27 major US airports. The FAA and NASA said the new software was tested for four years that calculates gate pushbacks at busy hub airports "so that each plane can roll directly to the runway and to take off." When deployed, the FAA said it anticipates annually saving more than 7m gallons (26.5m litres) of fuel and eliminating more than 75,000 tons of CO2 emissions. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the software came from the strategy "the trajectories to get where you wanted out in space to other planets ... The idea was simple: take that technology and apply it to an aircraft." The airports expected to get the software over the next decade include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare and Midway, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston Bush, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Newark, New York JFK and La Guardia, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington Dulles and Reagan National.<br/>