Charting Aviation's Future

Charting Aviation’s Future: Operations in an Info-Centric NAS is the FAA vision for the future of the National Airspace System (NAS). It describes how the FAA will build on the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and trajectory-based operations foundations. It illustrates operations serving both the traditional air traffic management community and the extensible traffic management community in a safe, seamless, efficient, and equitable manner, leading to a more agile and flexible NAS.

This vision provides the grounds for full dialogue with all parts of the aviation community on assumptions, opportunities, and timelines to meet those opportunities. The need for dialogue is evident in the multitude of new technologies, operations, and aviation community partners that have arrived since the beginning of NextGen’s implementation in 2008. This document is a basis to begin the conversation.

Charting Aviation’s Future: Operations in an Info-Centric NAS (07:41)

The FAA's Vision For The Future of the National Airspace System: interconnected, flexible, and inclusive to all stakeholders.

Initial Concept of Operations for an Info-Centric National Airspace System

The FAA developed Charting Aviation’s Future: Operations in an Info-Centric NAS to describe the opportunities afforded by technology advances enabling changes to the future NAS and the anticipated changes in the areas of operations, safety assurance, and infrastructure. This Initial Concept of Operations for an Info-Centric National Airspace System describes how that vision will be met from an operational perspective.

This concept document describes future operations in the NAS, with initial capabilities expected to be operational by approximately 2035. It is broad in scope and describes NAS operations in general terms, serving as the frame of reference for lower-level concepts. This document is expected to be used by NAS stakeholders as a framework to use for the development of lower level concepts of operations that provide more specific details regarding services, solutions, and capabilities as well as research and development planning.

Enterprise Architecture

The FAA uses the NAS Enterprise Architecture (EA) to plan, communicate, design, and safely integrate innovations into the NAS.

Enterprise Architecture – Evolving to an Info-Centric NAS (07:42)

How the FAA will implement the Info-Centric NAS vision by leveraging its NAS Enterprise Architecture to plan, communicate and safely integrate new technology into the NAS by 2035 and beyond to meet varying user needs.