FAA activates 169 new airspace routes along East Coast ahead of busy summer travel

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration has activated 169 new routes along the East Coast that the agency says are more direct ahead of summer travel season and will save passengers time, airlines fuel and increase safety.

The new routes are the result of more than seven years of work by aviation industry experts who helped develop and implement the high-altitude highways in the sky, the FAA said in a statement.

“These significant improvements to our national airspace system are just in time for summer and will help travelers get to their destinations more efficiently,” Tim Arel, chief operating officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, said in a statement. “The new routes will reduce complexity and redistribute volume across all available airspace. I’m proud of the FAA and industry’s strong collaboration on this project to get it done.”

The direct routes will trim 40,000 miles and 6,000 minutes of travel time annually, due to the shorter distance, the FAA said. The change helps prevent delays by giving the agency more capacity to direct traffic to specific routes based on the aircraft’s destination.

When weather incidents happen, controllers will also have more flexibility, the FAA said.

And, the agency said fewer converging points and more simple flows will enhance safety.

The new routes operate primarily above 18,000 feet in altitude along the East Coast, as well as offshore over the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The FAA has “sunset” the legacy routes built when aircraft largely relied on ground-based radar, limiting the directness of routes, instead of GPS.

Travelers can find the most up-to-date information about summer travel here.

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