As part of our studies of the interactions of airline operations control centers (AOCs) with the air traffic management system, we have assembled teams to visit a set of AOCs and TMUs. These teams were composed from an airline air traffic coordinator, a former air traffic manager, two pilots and two aviation human factors researchers. The purpose of these visits was to observe, interview and collect data relevant to the following questions:

1. What is the impact of the expanded National Route Program (NRP) on the functioning and interactions of AOCs and TMUs?
2. What implications do these findings regarding the expanded NRP have for guiding future decisions about the architecture of the National Aviation System?

In conducting these analyses, a particular emphasis is being placed on the human factors implications and issues.

In order to provide timely access to our findings, we are first distributing memos such as this which simply list preliminary observations. It should also be recognized that many of these "observations" are really hypotheses, as they are based on limited input and data at this point. As the study is completed, these will be merged and organized into a more cohesive report. This memo is a result of visits to the Chicago and Cleveland TMUs.

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