During the busy summer travel season, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Monday that it had activated 169 additional direct routes along the East Coast. These routes will increase safety and help prevent delays.

Due to their shorter distance, the new routes will save 40,000 miles of travel time annually. According to the FAA, this will “give the agency more capacity to direct traffic to specific routes based on the aircraft’s destination,” which will help “prevent delays.”

FFA Enhancing Travel Safety

Air traffic controllers will have more leeway during inclement weather thanks to the additional routes. According to the FAA, it will also reduce the number of convergent points, which will improve safety.

Tim Arel, chief operating officer of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, stated that the upgrades will help travelers get to their destinations more efficiently and reduce complexity by redistributing volume across the national airspace system. This is good news at a time when the FAA is trying to fill positions before the busy travel season.

At the request of the FAA, which has a severe shortage of controllers at a crucial facility on Long Island, several airlines, including JetBlue, agreed to reduce schedules in New York this summer.

JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes revealed in March that the air traffic control center that controls all incoming, outgoing, and through traffic across New York airspace is only 54% staffed. Hayes went on to say that this is in contrast to the 81% national average. “Several steps to keep air travel to and from New York City this summer safe and smooth” was the agency’s statement.