Well-correlated with real-time FAA data
As an FAA Traffic Management Specialist, I administer Ground Delay programs daily. After downloading this app, I took it to work and compared it with our internal real-time data over several days and was pleasantly surprised at its accuracy. I did notice a couple of minor shortfalls, outlined below.
First, the good:
The information presented is highly accurate. Every time I compared the average delay times shown on FAAwait with our National Traffic Management system data, they were right on.
The interface is well-designed and easily readable.
The landscape mode offers a nice graphical representation of airports in delay status.
Now the not-so-good:
Occasionally, departure delay information is not updated immediately. Today, MCO went into departure delay status due to thunderstorms, and FAAwait did not reflect this until about 25 minutes later.
Also, Ground Delay Programs (GDPs) do not reflect whether all airports are affected. At the FAA, we have a "Scope" field that indicates the impact of GDPs (some apply to all traffic, and others only to specific geographic regions.) For example, today PHL had a GDP and FAAwait showed the correct average delay of 171 minutes. However, the scope of the Program was "800 miles plus Canada", meaning only aircraft departing from airports within 800 miles of PHL are affected. Hence, if you are departing from LAX, you would not experience this delay. FAAwait has no way to indicate the scope of the Program, so if you ever see lengthy delays depicted on FAAwait but you dont experience a delay, this could be the reason.
Those are minor quibbles with an otherwise fine app. I will continue to use it myself whenever I travel and I can strongly recommend it.
scoobydoo99 about
FAAwait