Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways will team with Honeywell while US Airways plans to partner with ACSS to gain early operational knowledge of automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) for terminal operations.
Speaking at the Air Traffic Control Association's annual conference in Washington DC, FAA acting administrator Bobby Sturgell this morning said the FAA will provide $3 million to Honeywell to work with JetBlue and Alaska to gain operational and human factors knowledge with ADS-B using Honeywell aircraft and mainline pilots for operations at the Seattle Tacoma International Airport and Paine Field in Washington state.
FAA has also awarded a contract to ADS-B innovator ACSS to equip 20 US Airways Airbus A330s with the company's SafeRoute merging and spacing tool for testing ADS-B enabled terminal operations at the Philadelphia International Airport.
UPS, which has been equipping its aircraft with SafeRoute to optimize operations at its Louisville, Kentucky hub, will also participate in the Philadelphia trials, Sturgell says.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
