For more than twenty years, the FAA has worked with stakeholders in the aviation community to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS). NextGen was the result of these efforts and the driver of change as the agency moved onto the path of modernization of the NAS infrastructure. Changes in the needs of air travelers, congestion, aging systems, and diverse operations indicated a need for a unified modernization effort, and all of those factors contributed to the original need for what became NextGen.

From the start, NextGen was meant to improve safety for the flying public, while increasing efficiency in an era of ever increasing demands for additional capacity. Lower costs would be an extra benefit of a NAS operating under NextGen’s rubric. These complementary goals fueled the initial forward motion toward the NextGen concept.

Deregulation and Congestion Indicate The Need for NextGen

The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 opened U.S. aviation to the forces of the free market and contributed to a period of rapid growth in air travel. Flight options increased, leading to lower airfares, more passengers, and higher customer expectations. By the late 1990s, American airspace was experiencing mounting congestion, with about one in every four flights delayed. Representatives from the government, industry, and the public expressed concern about how the NAS could accommodate future air travel demand, given the prediction of significant growth in aviation service needs through 2025. To resolve this challenge and ensure the United States retained its leadership in global aviation, the federal government decided to make major changes to the FAA's operations.

Reauthorizing and Planning for NextGen

A combination of severe congestion and post-9/11 security needs made wildly apparent the need for a modernization effort for the transport of people and cargo by air. In 2002, the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry recommended a multiagency task force to develop an integrated plan to transform the U.S. air transportation system.
In 2003, Congress passed the Vision 100—Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act. The legislation established the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) to create a unified vision of what the U.S. air transportation system should deliver for the next generation and beyond. The JPDO developed and coordinated long-term research plans and sponsored cross-agency mission research.

The result of the JPDO's efforts was the 2004 creation of the Next Generation Air Transportation System Integrated Plan, which defined high-level goals and requirements to transform the NAS. In addition to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and FAA, the plan involved other government agencies with responsibilities in air transportation, including NASA and the departments of Commerce, Defense, and Homeland Security.

A Concept of Operations for NextGen

In 2007, following the FAA’s validation of strategies to provide greater insight into technologies that would modernize the NAS, the JPDO updated the original vision with the Concept of Operations for the Next Generation Air Transportation System in order to align with affordability and technical maturity goals. The document identified key research and policy issues that needed to be resolved to achieve national goals for air transportation. The FAA intended for the document to drive cross-agency research to validate the concepts, as well as eliminate operationally impractical ideas.

The FAA’s NextGen Mid-Term Concept of Operations for the National Airspace System (2011) was a stepping stone from the legacy system to the NextGen NAS envisioned by the JPDO. The document outlined a process to move modernization efforts from a “curb-to-curb” approach to a “gate-to-gate” vision, thereby focusing on the operations under the FAA's control. All along, the goals of increasing capacity and efficiency while maintaining safety and security were maintained.

This mid-term concept of operations showed ambition, but these programs had not yet been validated. To maximize benefits for users of the NAS, the FAA outlined several different potential outcomes for the future and, in 2016, published The Future of the NAS to explain how technology would be used to meet the goals of the original mid-term concept. The document reflected the results of concept evolution and technology assessments and guided the FAA in prioritizing future investments. It also helped mature the vision for Trajectory Based Operations (TBO).

Between the releases of these NextGen concept documents, the FAA also published the Integration of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the NAS Roadmap in 2013 (updated in 2018); Performance Based Navigation NAS Navigation Strategy in 2016; Vision for Trajectory Based Operations in 2017; and UAS Traffic Management Concept of Operations in 2018 (updated in 2020).

Collaboration and The Path to Projected Benefits

In 2010, the DOT established the NextGen Advisory Committee (NAC) to respond to specific assignments from the FAA. The NAC comprises around 30 senior executives representing aircraft operators, international stakeholders, airports, labor unions, manufacturers, environmental interest groups, the Department of Defense, and NASA. The advisory committee completes assignments related to concepts, requirements, operational capabilities, the associated use of technology, and other considerations to operations that affect NextGen.

The NAC identified the highest benefits of NextGen capabilities for stakeholders. The NextGen Priorities Joint Implementation Plan, first published in 2014 and subsequently updated, described ready-to-implement activities aligned with FAA and aviation community priorities, such as Multiple Runway Operations (MRO), Performance Based Navigation (PBN), Surface Operations and Data Sharing, and Data Communications (Data Comm).

The FAA and its international partners collaborated with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to develop a globally connected, harmonized air traffic management system. As the aviation technical body of the United Nations, ICAO provides a forum for its 192 member states to adopt and implement international aviation standards. The FAA helped lead the revision of the global air traffic management roadmap described by the ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan, which defined the course of world aviation systems for the near-future.

The FAA continues to collaborate directly with key international partners and regional groups on relevant air traffic management modernization topics. Together with the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) organization, the FAA periodically updates the NextGen–SESAR State of Harmonisation, which summarizes progress toward global interoperability between the continents. The FAA maintains international agreements with the European Union, Japan, and Singapore to conduct joint research and development of future air traffic systems.

NextGen Concept Validation

The FAA established the Florida NextGen Test Bed in 2008 to generate industry-driven concepts that would advance NextGen concepts and goals. Located next to Daytona Beach International Airport and near Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL, the research facility provides a platform for integrating, demonstrating, and evaluating early-stage concepts. Industry partners meet at the test bed to test the possible incorporation of their NextGen products into the NAS in a controlled setting. The facility contains more than two dozen NAS systems. For multi-site demonstrations, the test bed can remotely connect to other FAA laboratories, government partner sites, as well as industry and academic sites.

Another test facility was dedicated in 2010: the NAS Innovation and Emerging Concepts Laboratory at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center for Advanced Aerospace near Atlantic City, NJ. Formerly known as the NextGen Integration and Evaluation Capability Laboratory, the facility provides a NextGen gate-to-gate simulation environment with advanced data-collection capabilities to support the integration and evaluation of new technologies and concepts.

In 2012, the FAA designated the NASA/FAA North Texas Research Station as a NextGen test facility. It is located near several air traffic control facilities, airports, and airline operations centers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The facility can access a variety of NAS data that enhances the evaluation of advanced technologies for NextGen and simulates air transportation operations. The laboratory, managed by NASA Ames Research Center Aviation Systems Division, operates in all phases of NextGen research, from early concept development to field evaluations of prototype systems. In this way, this facility has transitioned advanced NextGen concepts and technologies that were later provided to the FAA through technology transfers.

Through the FAA Air Transportation Centers of Excellence (COE), the FAA works with colleges and universities and their industry affiliates to advance aviation technologies. This cooperation is critical for training the next generation of aviation professionals. Some of the 13 focus areas are UAS, commercial space transportation, alternative jet fuels, and the mitigation of aircraft noise and aviation emissions. MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, a federally funded research and development center, also continues to support FAA research in NextGen decision support systems and TBO concepts.

NAS Segment Implementation Plan

Covering 5-year segments through 2040, the NAS Segment Implementation Plan (NSIP) was the FAA’s blueprint for developing, integrating, and implementing NextGen capabilities. Operational improvements were organized into 11 portfolios in the NSIP to group-related initiatives for assessing, developing, and implementing new capabilities.

The improvements were divided into capabilities and then deployed by increments as the technology or process became operational. This method immediately provided benefits to the aviation community. As capabilities were put in place, the operational improvements became current operations.

The Development of NextGen

NextGen was managed with short-term funding horizons which ensured affordability. Improvements were rolled out by the FAA in smaller increments with more program segments. The FAA defined four 5-year segments to assist in planning NextGen investments. The integration will continue after 2025 for the provision of the full set of anticipated NextGen benefits, and implementation of all planned systems is scheduled to be completed by 2030.

Beyond 2030, the FAA expects to accrue benefits through enterprise-level advanced applications, additional aircraft equipage, and full adoption of TBO. TBO will bring increases in throughput, predictability, and efficiency.

Safety Remains The Primary Focus

Safety is the primary concern with any FAA program's implementation. The benefits of new capabilities must align with safe operations in the NAS. Only after thorough safety testing were new capabilities implemented under NextGen. This will remain the same for future modernization efforts.

The FAA conducted safety risk management for research and development, prototyping, testing and evaluation, and flight trials and demonstrations for NextGen. Risk-based decision-making to support agency-wide safety initiatives was used as NextGen programs were implemented. Program teams accessed centralized data to gain a holistic perspective on system risks using resources such as the Hazard Identification, Risk Management, and Tracking Tool; the Aviation System Information Analysis and Sharing; and the System Safety Management Transformation, among others. 

Continuing Improvement Through The NAS Enterprise Architecture

A key resource for the NAS’s journey from NextGen to the future is the NAS Enterprise Architecture (EA). The EA describes the evolution of air traffic control through the FAA’s implementation of infrastructure, technologies, and new services. The NAS EA documents current and future mission-critical and mission-support systems and includes roadmaps to help identify, track, and mature concepts, systems, and services that will further advance the NAS.

The NAS EA helps transform the NAS by communicating system responsibilities and enhancing NAS operations. This architecture facilitates the consolidation of functions and systems while continuing to meet the aviation community's evolving needs.

Revealing the results of the FAA’s research to reality operations, the EA will remain valuable beyond NextGen, into the modernization work of the near future. 

From NextGen to the Future

Via NextGen, the FAA has pushed the NAS into the future. A transition to satellite-enabled navigation and surveillance, along with the supplementation of voice with digital communications, are examples of work that has made the NAS equipped for future technological advances. The advances of NextGen have allowed new entrants to the NAS, including unmanned aircraft, commercial space vehicles, and drones. Safety has guided the process of creating mechanisms and processes for these new entrants to operate in our skies. Testing will continue beyond 2025 as the variety of entrants expands and the complexity of operations increases.

The NAS is now poised for new challenges as operations face increased complexity, and capacity increases as unmanned vehicles become a greater factor in our skies.

The NAS is regarded as the global gold standard of air transportation systems. That level of excellence was achieved through the FAA's continuous innovation and ceaseless striving to make a safe system even safer.

The programs and upgrades of NextGen have brought systems together in new ways, while streamlining processes, and creating not only a safer system, but a far more efficient airspace for travelers and operators.

The NAS has evolved from a ground-based system of air traffic control into a satellite-based system of air traffic control thanks to NextGen. The NAS is now able to let operators share information more easily, while supporting a future of more diverse and complex flight operations.

NextGen has transformed the NAS into a modern, efficient, and more flexible aerospace system that fully meets the changing needs of businesses and customers in the 21st century.

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