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[Hi, this is Sean Gannon at GE Reports, ]
[and I'm here with GE Aviation Systems' Steve Fulton. ]
[Steve, about the technology today--]
[what makes this a first for the U.S.? Because I know these types of paths have been flown]
[overseas before, but what makes it unique for the U.S. today?]
[
[that airplanes use in and out of airports--]
[we have them available already in the United States. ]
[What is different today--it's the first time that an organization other than the FAA]
[has created one of these paths]
[and made it available for use by all operators in the airspace. ]
[
[now that you have a private party doing it?]
[Is that the way to understand it?]
[
[flight procedures required as part of the transition under way in the United States]
[And so, in order to get that work done sooner, rather than later, ]
[there need to be additional resources,]
[more than what the FAA has within their own organization. ]
[So we're qualified as of today to be a provider of these flight procedures]
[into the public system the airlines and all airplanes in the airspace use. ]
[
[Will I notice anything differently?]
[Is it a sharper landing, a sharper takeoff? What will I see looking out the window?]
[
[an aviation-interested observer--you probably won't notice anything.]
[This is going to be the beauty. ]
[There's a lot more gentler operation that's possible.]
[What we're doing is we're designing and engineering paths that are]
[optimized for the airplane, and when they're fully connected with the automation]
[in the airplane including the autopilot, ]
[we're taking out the human element, the human variance, which sometimes you might ]
[feel in the back of the airplane as steeper bank angles or a little bit more of a,]
[of an extra maneuver that would tell you that the pilot is making judgments]
[based on the cues that he is getting up front]
[and then making corrections to the flight path.]
[We're taking all of that into account and engineering in this very smooth,]
[continuous operation that, to the astute observer in the back, you would notice]
[that as a smoother operation. ]
[So we have efficiencies throughout the departure and climb up to the en route altitude]
[and then in the en route segment, we have an opportunity to increase the more direct]
[routing as we take into consideration some of the factors there and then]
[optimize the descent from the top of descent at cruise all the way down to the runway. ]
[So it's a runway-to-runway opportunity to improve efficiency.]
[
[the FAA's vision and the amount of technology that can be fielded?]
[
[passengers on-board the airplane, ]
[the thing that will be most noticeable is the ability to predict]
[and have an airplane depart on time and arrive on time. ]
[So schedules will begin to mean something again. ]
[And, also, for a a given city pair, we want to reduce the flying time]
[and the schedule time between those two city pairs. ]
[Over the last 20 years, for a given departure and destination airport, ]
[we've seen increases in flight times, ]
[and obviously the airports aren't getting further apart.]
[The difficulty for the airlines is the air traffic is becoming more complex]
[and there are more and more delays. ]
[So we're going to take that out of the system,]
[and that's going to mean a lot for the passenger onboard the airplane. ]
[You can go to the airport with a greater confidence the airplane is going to depart]
[on schedule and arrive on schedule. ]
[
[but they have less worry about how it's going to impact and cascade]
[on their schedules, as well. Is that right?]
[
[and it's not going to get any cheaper, obviously, as we're looking at the forecast]
[going forward. The second thing is the]
[maximum utilization of a high-cost piece of equipment.]
[Airplanes and the people that work around and in the airplanes--]
[all of that is a very high cost to the airplanes,]
[so getting maximum utility out of that asset for any given day in their schedule]
[is going to be a big opportunity for them. ]
[
