[Mifnet 🛰 76180] Re: News Flash - Fuel is not the airlines largest controllable cost item

Sat, 16 May 2026 18:52:12 -0700

With respect, Bob, airlines have been complaining about ‘ATC’ for decades. Over the same period, FAA has invested scores of billions of dollars in new infrastructure and tools, forcing airlines to spend significant sums for avionics to support the new tools. The story is quite similar outside the U.S. 

Also over that same period, airlines continue to drive self-induced, unmanaged congestion, driving the need for ATC intervention to provide enroute and terminal airspace separation and safety, requiring more and more infrastructure and tools, driving further spending.

That’s a version of the ‘do the same things, get the same results’ problem you cite. A vicious cycle of capital destruction at both agency and airlines, while customers continue to see poor outcomes including delays, investors see reduced returns, employees become worn out by unreliable and highly variant flight timeliness, and the economy is burdened by what agencies, academics and Congress agree are billion of dollars annually in delay costs. Likewise in Europe where SESAR and improved ATC are nothing more than aspirational goals.

The root cause problem and opportunity to improve ‘ATC’ system performance and airport throughput, effectively expanding capacity, is by preventing unmanaged, self-induced congestion, rather than forcing ATC to fix congestion by issuing vectoring, reroutes, and delays.  

Addressing root cause reduces the need for ATC intervention, infrastructure, and controller workload, while capturing and allowing utilization of latent system capacity. Also improves customer, investor, employee and national economic outcomes.

The solution is to incentivize (or mandate) airlines to real-time manage their own day-of-flight 4D trajectories, system optimize aircraft flow, sequencing and spacing to their own business rules, using their own realtime information about their own resource statuses, possible for decades. Allow ATC to real-time broker multiple carrier system optima to generate a global system optimum. Demonstrated possible and commercialized for more than a decade.

If these facilities had never been demonstrated and independently validated as producing meaningful on-time improvements and flying time reduction benefits — including in FAA-funded, brokered multi-carrier trials — one might say ‘pie in the sky, computationally unscalable’.  The reality is the facilities are commercially available, and on the shelf for rapid deployment. 

Unfortunately, the vaunted $30+ billion BNATCS addresses none of this, based on which, ten years and way more than $30 billion from now, nothing will have changed except for more flights, more delays, and airlines moving on to a familiar topic, more finger-pointing.

- Bob Mann

Office contact: +1-516-944-0900 

On May 16, 2026, at 18:57, Robert S. Distler via Mifnet <[email protected]> wrote:



Michael,

 

Did you ever hear the one about the guy who made the same mistake on a computer time and again, but was surprised that he got the same response?

 

In more than twenty years, you’ve been posting variations on the same theme.  You might consider moving onto another subject.

 

Bob Distler

 

 

From: ATHGroup--- via Mifnet <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, 16 May, 2026 15:05
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 76177] Re: News Flash - Fuel is not the airlines largest controllable cost item

 

Bob,

 

Why would I move on when the task is not complete and the airline’s ”day of” operation is still dismal?

 

  1. Airlines have delivered 30% of their customers late (A0) for the last 50 years and are happy with this result moving into the future.
  2. Individual large airlines lose $5 Billion annually because of their willingness to ignore their delay problem.
  3. Airlines completely and unnecessarily abdicate control over the movement of their aircraft to ATC.
  4. ATC has spent $100s of Billions over the last 50 years trying to solve airline delays - and failed.
  5. Now FAA wants to spend $31.5 Billion, which while helping with equipment failures, will do nothing to solve the root problem causing most delays.
  6. Airline delays are just that - airline delays.

 

Conversely, my proposed solution has been independently validated in actual airline operations by FAA, Embry-Riddle University, GE Aviation, Delta Air Lines, Georgia Tech and others at some of the world’s busiest airports, including Atlanta, Minneapolis, Detroit, Charlotte and Dubai (GreenLandings® Benefit Summary).

 

Next, with what part of my statements do you disagree? What have I said that is inaccurate? Have you taken the time to read even one of my papers? If so, please point to my mistake.

 

Finally, you continually criticize my posts but have offered no solution of your own, nor, it seems, have you taken the time to even understand what I propose.

 

Michael

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

R. Michael Baiada

cell - (303) 521-6047

[email protected]

 

From: Robert S. Distler via Mifnet <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2026 14:33
To: [email protected]
Cc: Robert S. Distler <[email protected]>
Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 76176] Re: News Flash - Fuel is not the airlines largest controllable cost item

 

Does Mr. Baiada ever move on?

 

Bob Distler

 

 

From: ATHGroup--- via Mifnet <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, 13 May, 2026 09:23
To: David Wardell <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 76157] News Flash - Fuel is not the airlines largest controllable cost item

 

News Flash - Fuel is not the airlines largest controllable cost item.

While fuel is expensive ($3.878/gal, IATA 2026-05-13), and a very large line-item on an airline's balance sheet, there is a controllable airline cost that is 4 times larger.

I am talking about lost aircraft productivity, which has been institutionalized into the airline's "day of" operation though the continual addition of scheduled flight/gate time buffers.

Unfortunately, this is not a visible line-item cost on the airline's balance sheet, so there is minimal focus on this problem, especially since airlines incorrectly assume that this is an ATC problem.

Airlines accept this as the cost of doing business - it's NOT.

Airlines could internally cut their scheduled flight/gate time buffers by 50% within just a few years. The upside, along with freeing up a significant amount of aircraft productivity, is that this also reduces the airline's delays and fuel costs.

ATC can't do this, FAA/NATS/Eurocontrol can't do this, only each individual airline has the internal ability to dramatically improve their "day of" production line.

Airlines could. Airlines should. Airlines don't.

Airline Delays - Random Point Overloads White Paper (AGIFORS, 2026-04-14) - https://lnkd.in/gzXJMnS8

Who Controls the Movement of the Aircraft? (Leeham News, 2026-03-31) - https://lnkd.in/ghuXRbCy

What Airlines Should Want? (MTS, Winter, 2026) - https://lnkd.in/gCpnAamr

 

Michael

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

R. Michael Baiada

cell - (303) 521-6047

[email protected]

 

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