Which of the following is a traffic management initiative used by the FAA to manage capacity and delay?

• A. Mile-in-trail
• B. Ground stops
• C. Metering
• D. Sequencing

Answer: (B)

Ground stops are a traffic management tool the FAA uses to directly control capacity and delays by freezing departures (and sometimes arrivals) on the ground when the flow into congested airspace or airports would exceed what the system can safely handle. By stopping flights on the ground, the FAA prevents a surge of aircraft from entering the system, which helps avoid longer, cascading delays later and maintains safe, orderly operations. Other tools like miles-in-trail, metering, and sequencing help smooth flow or optimize order and spacing, but they don’t impose an outright, temporary halt in the same way a ground stop does. Miles-in-trail focuses on maintaining a set distance between aircraft, metering releases arrivals to match runway capacity, and sequencing arranges the order of arrivals and departures to optimize throughput.