NextGen
About the FAA's NextGen Project
Over the past few years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which controls all air space and flights, has implemented its NextGen effort across the nation. The FAA’s goal with NextGen is to improve safety and the efficiency of air carrier traffic by (in effect) narrowing departure and arrival paths down more specific and repeatable tracks.
JWA Departure Patterns
In our region, the FAA studied the 23 or so airports in and around Southern California (calling this the So Cal MetroPlex) and has implemented three new departure patterns for John Wayne Airport’s (JWA’s) major commercial air carriers. General Aviation planes generally do not fly these patterns. The three NextGen patterns out of JWA are known as:
- PIGGN (for flights going east of Las Vegas - about half of all commercial carriers at JWA take this route);
- FINZZ (for flights going to Las Vegas or Salt Lake City - <10 percent of all JWA flights go here); and
- HHERO (for flights going north to the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle and more - a little over 40 percent of all JWA flights take this route).
NextGen's Major Carrier Departure Patterns at JWA |
|||||
|
% of Flights that Use It |
Key Destinations |
Date First Implemented |
Most Recent Modification |
Replaced |
PIGGN | A bit less than 50% |
Most places |
March 2, 2017 |
May 25, 2017 |
STREL (RNAV) |
FINZZ | Less than 10% | SLC, LAS | April 27, 2017 |
December 7, 2017 |
MUSEL |
HHERO |
A bit more |
Bay Area, PDX, SEA |
April 27, 2017 |
October 12, 2017 |
CHANNEL (Conv. SID) |
STAYY (RNP) | Less than 10% |
DEN, PHX | March 29, 2018 |
None | N/A |
For more information, please contact the FAA or visit its NextGen website.