WASHINGTON, D.C. — While you’re arriving at the airport, there’s a team you’ll never see making sure you get to your destination safely.
It’s called the Air Traffic Control System Command Center. The one-of-a-kind facility is run by the Federal Aviation Administration and the mission here is directing traffic for as many as 50,000 flights every day.
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“If I-95 were shut down, where would I send you? I’d send you over to Interstate 81. We’re basically managing road space in the sky,” said Jason Rooks, air traffic manager for the Air Traffic Control System Command Center.
The Washington News Bureau visited Rooks and his team as the remnants of Tropical Storm Debby brought heavy rain, flooding, and even tornado watches up and down the East Coast.
“What we’re trying to juggle is capacity and demand at airports that have a small footprint, like LaGuardia. So, traffic started departing wherever you left from, let’s call it Denver – a couple hours ago, they’re getting there now trying to land in heavy cross winds, and it’s hard to get departures out,” said Rooks.
Air traffic controllers are also monitoring the skies, and they’re towers at other centers to figure out if flights need to be delayed, re-routed, or canceled altogether.
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Another team is tracking what happens at 40,000 feet in the air.
“It’s not just a typical thunderstorm we’re looking at because we’re thinking air traffic thunderstorms have vertical profiles, and they get to certain heights in the atmosphere,” said Wes Adkins, National Aviation meteorologist.
Wes Adkins is a meteorologist for the FAA. He said thunderstorms can cause the most trouble for your travel plans. That’s because even if the weather is clear where you are and where you’re going there could be storms in between.
“Air traffic tends to follow like altitudes, like 35,000 feet, 40,000 feet, that kind of thing. If thunderstorm tops get up to that point, then that becomes a problem for air traffic. They have to deviate around those thunderstorm clusters,” said Adkins. “Likewise, if we’re looking at thunderstorms that are much shallower in depth…if those thunderstorms are over New Jersey and planes are descending to those altitudes to get to Newark, to get to LaGuardia, to get to get to JFK, then that is still a problem.”
Extreme weather isn’t the only event on the radar. This year, presidential and vice presidential candidates are also crisscrossing the skies. Sometimes these candidates are flying to multiple cities in the same day and that could impact other nearby flights.
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“We do have plans in place to understand where the movement is, the timing of it, the coordination of it, and how to either slow down traffic or stop traffic,” said Rooks.
Despite the potential for turbulence of all kinds, the goal of the command center is simple: limit delays as much as possible while keeping you safe.
“We don’t want to really impact you, because we fly too,” said Rooks. “So what can we do to help you get there without damaging the schedule or your time.”
FAA meteorologists say the most active weather season is from spring break to Labor Day which happens to coincide with peak travel times.
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