Aviation expert: Ground stop appears to be a precautionary safety measure

Captain Shem Melmquist is joining us. He's a professor of aeronautics at FIT. Captain, thank you so much for being with us tonight. What do you think is happening right now? Well, of course, we actually have no idea exactly what's happening. I I would, yeah, I mean, the first thing we all think about is this Microsoft mess that we've been dealing with since yesterday. And is that part of this? I mean, as near as I can tell, there is no problem with aircraft that are already en route. So they just don't want to put more airplanes into the system. That might potentially overload it or create capacity issues that could be related to just the ability to communicate between different facilities and sharing information so they can be ready and prepare because a big part of the system. As complex, something as complex as the entire U.S. air traffic system is that the different facilities need to be able to coordinate and time those flights so they don't get overloaded unexpectedly and things like that. So it really is, I'm sure, a proactive safety measure just to make sure I'm not concerned about any actual in-flight safety. But... In aviation and commercial aviation particularly, we take a very conservative approach and it's Much better to have a few delays than to take any chances at all. The Secretary of Transportation saying this is due to a communication issue. And I'm curious, Captain, what you make of that statement, especially in light of the fact that the Secretary of Transportation is lately bragging on this AI system that the FAA has put in place, although that seems to be more focused on route planning and navigating traffic in the air. How do you make sense of what we know right now, Given the new introduction of AI technology into some Some aspects of air traffic control, and them calling this a communications issue, I don't mean to ask you to speculate, but I am curious your knowledge of the new technology that's been introduced recently. Well, I don't think that the technology has really been implemented all that much. This is all pretty new, and at this point, I would probably lend Towards just simply the ability to communicate, there's a lot of information that needs to go between the various air route traffic control centers, the local controllers, and... and forth just to make sure that a bunch of aircraft don't get to a certain destination and suddenly have so much delays that they now have potential fuel issues and have to start diverting to other locations, creating an even bigger mess. So I would say it's probably related to that. I mean, I mean, it's I don't know that AI. Use, at least from what I've seen, is just talking about ways to identify opportunities to make things more efficient. Would not see that, at least based on what I'm seeing right now, as being related to this in this particular issue. Yeah, Captain, full disclosure here. My youngest son was in the air when the ground stop was announced. I was freaking out a little bit. I'm thinking there's a communication issue. How are they going to land? They landed about five minutes ago. I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief right now. But for people at home who may have someone who's actually up in a plane right now flying, How are they able to get these planes to land if there is communication issues on the ground? Well, first of all, we were able to work all these things well before we had computers and these kinds of problems. But the controller is able to control the aircraft within their sector. And they still have telephones so they can call the next sector as they're handing off aircraft between sectors. What is going to be limited is the ability to you know really provide broader information for the traffic management people to... Keep the flows balanced, but the airplanes already in the system that's already been accounted for. That's already so. So everything is pretty much already set to go. And by not putting more aircraft in the system, it just enables them to make sure that there is not some unexpected problem. And again, for our viewers who may be limited in their knowledge of Air travel in general, when you hear there may be holding in the air, can you give us an idea of how much fuel the typical commercial airliner has on board at any given time? How long are they able to hold in the air in most cases? I know there are many types of aircraft, but just for folks who might need that basic understanding for their comfort tonight. Well, I mean, that's a highly variable question. And some of that is based on what the captain of the aircraft has decided their comfort range is. But we'll typically be landing with about an hour's worth of fuel if they're planning it correctly just to be efficient. And it could be more than that if there's concerns about weather or possible congestion at the destination, then we'll be adding more. But that actually is... A good amount and enough to make a lot of decisions early on because you can see things developing before you get into the situation where anything becomes critical. And so what you could see is a potential for aircraft diverting and things of that nature. But in this case, again, all the airplanes are already accounted for that are in flight. And so I don't anticipate any problems for anybody that's actually already en route. All right, Captain. Thank you so much for being with us. Shem Malmquist with FIT. We appreciate your time this evening.