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the need to hold and vector aircraft within terminal airspace, saving time and fuel. Airborne metering has resulted in arrival delay reductions of over two minutes per flight at Newark and Atlanta, the two airports making the most use of this capability. TBFM has saved an estimated $635 million to date at all airports where flights are regularly metered. Equivalent Lateral Spacing Operation (ELSO) is a new standard that has resulted in two new departure routes at Atlanta. ELSO reduces the angle between departure routes to as little as 10 degrees for aircraft using precise GPS-guided navigation, without requiring the aircraft to fly closer together. ELSO in Atlanta is saving $26 million per year in fuel costs by enabling additional 8 to 12 departures per hour. A total of $322 million has been saved since implementation in fiscal year 2012. Q-Routes allow Area Navigation (RNAV)-equipped aircraft to travel more direct routes between city pairs. These special routes alleviate traffic congestion along heavily used corridors. Less congestion can increase airspace capacity and bring more predictability in traffic flow. Aircraft flying along Q-Routes travel, on average, 14 fewer nautical miles and arrive two minutes sooner than other flights between the same airports. The estimated financial benefits of Q-Routes are $308 million to date. Wake Recategorization (Wake Recat) has saved an estimated $6 million by changing the way we manage the separation of aircraft at airports, beginning with Memphis and Louisville. By regrouping aircraft types according to similarities in their wake turbulence characteristics, certain pairs of aircraft can now arrive and depart closer together under the new standards. More aircraft can depart in a given period of time, providing average taxi-out time savings of up to 1.5 minutes, and up to almost 3 minutes during peak departure periods. FedEx reports that Wake Recat in Memphis has reduced taxi-out delay times and flight time in terminal airspace, saving the carrier $1.8 million in one particularly busy month. Wake Recat is also operational in Cincinnati and Atlanta, and we recently implemented the new standards in Charlotte this past March. You can learn even more about these programs — and many others — by visiting the NextGen Update: 2015 at faa.gov/nextgen/update. We are committed to delivering capabilities to benefit users of the NAS, advancing collaboration, and examining and renewing our goals to ensure NextGen remains on track. Our aviation community partners recognize they are just beginning to reap the substantial benefits NextGen offers. 25 NextGen Now | Summer 2015

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