Abstract

The air transportation system has been receiving more and more passengers every day. With this influx of passengers, the system is having difficulty keeping up with the demand. In order to combat this problem, President Bush signed the Vision 100 - Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act. This act, in turn, established the Joint Planning and Development Office, tasked with implementing The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). NextGen will be a series of changes to the entire aviation infrastructure in order to make it more efficient, more technologically advanced, and more ecologically friendly. My previous research included an interview of a random sample of twelve pilots in order to determine their opinions of the NextGen system. These pilots acknowledged that NextGen is meeting expectations in many ways. However, although the air traffic system would be able to hold more traffic, NextGen does not account for airport arrival and departure rates. Because of what the pilots revealed, this thesis examines four airports; San Francisco, Minneapolis, LaGuardia, and the NYC Metroplex, to see if "NextGen can solely account for and correct bottlenecks in the National Aerospace System?" This study concluded that although NextGen does not specifically address airport arrival and departure rates, NextGen provides airports the ability to expand and increase airport capacity. However, the benefits do not help all airports equally, some benefit greatly while others improve little with the NextGen system.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Airports--Planning; Aeronautics, Commercial--Forecasting; Aeronautics, Commercial--Technological innovations

Publication Date

8-1-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Department, Program, or Center

Department of Science Technology and Society/Public Policy (CLA)

Advisor

Foltz, Franz

Comments

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: TL725.3.P5 B68 2010

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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