Air travel will more than double in the next 20 years, according to a startling Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prediction.
The FAA’s annual forecast also estimates US airlines will fly one billion passengers per year by 2021, two years faster than previously forecast.
The number of passengers traveling on US airlines will increase 3.5 percent this year to 737.4 million. That number should is grow an average of 2.8 percent each year until 2031, when 1.3 billion passengers are estimated to fly on US carriers.
Total landings and takeoffs at US airports are forecast to slightly decrease this year, and then grow at an average annual rate of 1.6 percent each year, reaching 69.4 million in 2031.
There are no specific predictions of gloom but FAA and other officials are concerned that coping with this amount of traffic may be difficult without massive expenditures to modernize air-related facilities.
In predicting a sharp increase in air travel, the FAA lobbied again for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), a satellite-based air traffic control system that will start deploying next year.
"Only a modernized air transportation system will be able to keep up with our forecasted demand," said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt.
By David Wilkening
