A safe and efficient aviation industry is vital to the global economy. The growing traffic demand, rise in oil prices, delays in building new runways and security issues are putting pressures on the system to evolve from the current procedure-based human-centered system to a more flexible system with higher levels of automation. Traffic Flow Management (TFM) is the efficient organization of traffic flows to meet demand taking into account capacity constraints at airports and in en route airspace. TFM involves thousands of aircraft and several layers of decision-makers scattered between the FAA, Airlines and other users of airspace. Several types of uncertainties are pervasive in the system. This talk explores the complexity and richness of the problems in TFM by considering research in four different areas: (a) Characteristics of the TFM Network, (b) Aggregate Models for TFM, (c) Relationship between weather, traffic and delay and (d) Optimization. Current approaches towards finding best solutions to these problems are discussed.
