Integrated Collaborative Departure Traffic Management

In today’s departure traffic management operation, Traffic Management Coordinators (TMCs) face numerous challenges allocating the “right route to the right flight at the right time”, especially when thunderstorms are present. The lack of integrated traffic, weather, and airspace resource information leads to inefficient, reactive operations, and the lack of common understanding of the situation creates mistrust among decision makers. The point of action (the air traffic control tower) is too far removed from the point of decision making (the air traffic control center), producing departure queues where the wrong flight is in the wrong place at the wrong time. This paper discusses these challenges in today’s departure traffic management operation, how these challenges can be mitigated with the help of the right decision support tool(s), and how to truly realize the goal of having the right route for the right flight at the right time.