Air traffic control rules
Air traffic control rules are created to guarantee the safety of airplane passengers in the airline industry. It comprises of a series of regulations that must be followed by air controllers and pilots to make sure that the flow of airplanes is done in an orderly fashion.
One of the main pieces of regulation correspond to the minimum distance between airplanes. Right now, a common guideline is that airplanes must be separated by at least four miles of distance. This is a rule that is used to improve safety of everyone involved with the airline industry.
Currently, air traffic control rules are under great stress as the number of travels increased during the last few years. The number of controllers has been kept unaltered due to financial difficulties suffered by airports and airline companies.
This has been the reason for much of the delays occurring on US airports in the last months. Companies such as Delta, Continental, have problems because of crowded airports and lack of available space, which has been taken by security and related uses.
This area needs serious investment if we don't want to have a collapse of the industry. In some countries such as Brazil traffic control is already a major problem, which makes travelling a difficult proposition. We hope that US companies take major steps to avoid a bigger problem in the future.