One might assume that airlines, which are struggling under the burden of increased fuel costs, would fly the most direct routes from point A to point B--but that's not the case.
The current air traffic network regularly routes planes into indirect flight patterns to facilitate communications and radar coverage necessary for safe flight. However, a $35 billion plan to switch airlines to a satellite GPS navigation system could allow planes to fly straight lines, saving 3.3 billion gallons of fuel a year and saving billions of dollars and untold amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
But the complexity of switching systems and fuding delays have the program in a holding pattern, and the federal government doesn't expect it to be operational for more than a decade.
Read the full Associated Press coverage in the Baltimore Sun.
