Decision Support Tool for Predicting Ground Delay Programs and Airport Delays from Weather Forecast Data

During peak periods of operation, the National Airspace System (NAS) suffers from limited resources. Traffic Flow Management (TFM) is responsible for adjusting traffic flow demand to meet the available capacity. In the case of airports, TFM uses the Ground Delay Program (GDP) to allocate the constrained runway resources. The assignment of GDPs is a complex process that takes into account multiple factors. Predicting GDPs and the resulting delays based on weather is not deterministic. This paper however, describes a tool for forecasting the likelihood of a GDP at an airport and the delays at an airport throughout the day and at specific time periods during the day. The tool, trained on historical weather forecast data, predicted GDP’s at four OEP airports with accuracy at 73% and delays with accuracy of 76%. The implications of these results are discussed for airlines and TFM.