Equipage Issues From Airlines' Perspective

Advances in avionics can produce new capabilities or improvements in existing capabilities for both aircraft operators and the air traffic management (ATM) system. In the absence of regulatory mandates to equip with new avionics, the operator decision to take advantage of these capabilities is an economic one. This paper addresses this avionics equipage decision by providing an analysis of the factors that are considered by airlines and other National Airspace System (NAS) users when making avionics upgrade decisions for fleets or individual aircraft. In addition, data on avionics equipage for airline and other operators are used to present some detail regarding the current state of avionics utilization in the United States