The Federal Aviation Administration is adding 169 new, faster routes along the East Coast, several out of the D.C. area, ahead of the summer travel season.
These new, higher altitude routes will help planes get from point A to point B faster.
“These significant improvements to our national airspace system are just in time for summer and will help travelers get to their destinations more efficiently,” said Tim Arel, chief operating officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, in a news release about the initiative. “The new routes will reduce complexity and redistribute volume across all available airspace. I’m proud of the FAA and the industry’s strong collaboration on this project to get it done.”
Arel told WTOP that the routes have taken effect and are being eased into use.
So what could that mean if you fly sometime soon?
“We expect that they (pilots and travelers) will save around 40,000 flying miles. So 40,000 miles less, which equals about 6,000 minutes per year,” Arel said, adding that D.C. will serve as a central hub, and that dozens of the new routes either go through or depart from airports in the D.C. area.
“They may go more direct, and fly at higher altitudes above that traffic in the mid-Atlantic region,” Arel explained.
Ultimately, he said increasing travel demand over the last few years led the administration to this decision.
“The return of travel post-pandemic has made this really timely to implement now,” Arel said.
In addition to arriving at your destination faster, Arel said there’s another benefit with the higher altitude on some of these faster routes.
“Usually, it’s a smoother ride, I’d say, as a passenger,” Arel said.
In a release, the FAA said:
“The new routes operate primarily above 18,000 feet in altitude along the East Coast, as well as offshore over the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The FAA has sunset the legacy routes built when aircraft largely relied on ground-based radar, limiting the directness of routes, instead of GPS.”
