Future demand for air traffic services

Forecasts of the demand for air transportation indicate continued growth in that demand throughout the next 25 years. This paper translates those demand forecasts into measures of air traffic activity--flights, airport operations, and numbers of aircraft airborne at peak periods. Total air traffic activity in this country is projected to increase four-fold between 1968 and 1995. Most aircraft flying in the 1990's are expected to be provided some sort of control service; to serve these users, the capacity of the en route instrument flight-rules system may need to be increased by a factor of about eight. Providing air traffic control services to local and itinerant flights operating to and from all airports within approximately a 30-mile radius of a major terminal might increase tower (or computer) control loads to 10 or 15 times today's peaks.