ILS on the Block

In 2015, the FAA began looking to rationalize ILS approaches. In this context, rationalize means cut. The following year, the FAA developed a cost/benefit quantitative model and conducted an analysis at about 2900 airports with few or no RNAV SIDs or STARs. The finished product was a plan to decommission Cat I ILS approaches at some of these airports between 2020-2030. Before a decision was reached, the project was shelved in 2017.

Fred Simonds

Wednesday, January 29, 2020 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The FAA is systematically decommissioning older, expensive ground-based navigation aids (like NDBs and VORs) to cut costs and enhance safety by promoting approaches with vertical guidance.
Instrument Landing Systems (ILS), despite their historical importance, are increasingly outdated, costly to maintain, and operationally inferior to modern, software-based LPV (Localizer Performance with Vertical Guidance) approaches, which offer comparable or better vertical guidance at a fraction of the cost.
The FAA plans to "rationalize" (decommission) hundreds of Category I ILS approaches, particularly where LPVs provide redundancy, driven by cost savings, improved safety (vertical guidance), and the growing preference of pilots for LPVs, signaling the gradual phasing out of ILS.

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First, the FAA decommissioned 479 NDB procedures in 2005, saving around $8 million a year. The under-300 associated stations owned by the FAA were far beyond their planned 20-year service lives. Then they implemented the VOR Minimum Operational Network (MON) Program to retask and reshape Victor airways into a downsized backup network should GPS fail. That plan will decommission 311 VORs by 2025.

The FAA wants as many approaches with vertical guidance as possible. Statistics show that a pilot is four times more likely to have a CFIT accident flying a non-precision approach than one offering vertical guidance. Having trimmed the low-hanging fruit, the FAA is looking at the Sacred Cow, the ILS.