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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

This is a really good idea. I'd like to see some kind of REST api saying "Can I enter this X,Y,Z bounding box?", and then when getting back a HTTP 200 OK, a followup request can then be sent saying "I'm now out of this other XYZ bounding box".

As the skies get crowded, craft could even "rent" their airspace by the cubic meter. If you're a craft which can guarantee to be in a smaller space and fly close to other craft, like formation flying, you use up less airspace and save money.

Something like this for big planes would save massive amounts of fuel, because algorithms could be used to match flight patterns with weather maps to get a tailwind or uplift, rather than having a pilot having to manually ask ATC over the radio and then being forced to fly in a straight line at a fixed altitude as most planes do today.

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It might also cost large amounts of fuel when planes would have to take completely nonsensical routes to go around a scatter of tiny, blocked airspace areas everywhere.

Additionally, people might start to "squat" the airspace around airports and along preferrable routes and "rent" them to airlines at an increased price. (Or, if they are a competitor or have other reasons to damage the airline, simply block it and don't rent it at all)

I feel like an economist could solve this problem...

The "tiny blocked airspaces everywhere" problem is really how do you design an efficient market.

Perhaps for example, just because you have a piece of airspace doesn't give you the right to keep it. Someone else can come along and outbid you for it auction-style. That way, anyone squatting will have to pay handsomely to do so.

Obviously all the routing and bidding and allocation is done automatically and the pilot is just given a route to fly. While there is no shortage of airspace, most bids would probably be fractions of a cent anyway.

> Someone else can come along and outbid you for it auction-style.

There's someone who registered a new TLD that was aimed at making wedding websites, and they make it so the cost increases over time to avoid squatting. I think their rates are something like <$50 for 1 year, then >$1000 for the next, but the ramp could be however steep you want and on whatever time scale.

> * Someone else can come along and outbid you for it auction-style.*

Maybe I misunderstand your model, but which entity would run the auction? And who gets to collect the winning bids?

In the previous post, I assumed the whole market was to be a thing between the airspace participants while the air traffic authority just keep track who has blocked which part of the airspace. Would the authority now also conduct the auctions?

> That way, anyone squatting will have to pay handsomely to do so.

I'm not an economist, but I don't see why the squatters couldn't have deep pockets.

Squatting for political/strategic reasons might be done by airlines themselves - who might have large enough war chests to play games. (If the goal is to keep certain competitors out, they might not even need to win the auctions - driving up the price enough so that continued bidding becomes unviable would be enough)

If squatting for profit is viable, there might appear speculators who use credit/investor money to stay in the aucton.

> While there is no shortage of airspace, most bids would probably be fractions of a cent anyway.

My suspicion is that, just like land on the ground, different areas of airspace would have vastly different value. For drone/airtaxi/etc participants, airspace above big cities would probably be very valuable - while long-distance flights need to choose the best route, while taking distance across the globe, jetstreams, weather, distance to nearest airports, etc into account.

I'll take a shot at this since I'm bored...

Have occupancy be based on physical occupancy with a time limit based on a reasonable value corresponding to expected airspeed for the location. Of course airports would still control the landing/takeoff order because that's what they do.

I suspect the FAA has rules against blimps and helicopters hanging out in the paths the jumbojets take so I don't really see any way it would be possible to squat in a particular piece of sky.

For smaller drones, I really doubt there will ever be more drones flying around than birds and they seem quite able to share the airspace with a minimum of problems aside from becoming lunch for malicious actors or colliding with ground based vehicles.

And before long, the FCC will be trying to assert jurisdiction over the whole situation.

You should trust free markets and the widely distributed, deep wisdom of contracts. There are already market-based mechanisms in use for such needs in other areas of life.

For example, one can rent an indoor soccer field at a fixed weekly time for a fixed annual amount, and nobody else gets to use that field during that time. Then once a year that contract can be re-negotiated if someone else is offering a better deal -- better field? higher or lower price? nicer changing room? shorter- or longer-term agreement? etc.

If you reject free markets, contracts, and the social harmony of pricing mechanisms, you had better have better arguments than clicking on a down arrow.

I'm not an expert in air-traffic control, but I'd assume that is kind of how the current system works. After all, we do have private airlines who in some way do coordinate access to a shared resource via the air traffic authority.

The innovation the parent was suggesting was that airspace is allocated/traded in realtime without any long-term arrangements in effect. (If I understood it correctly)

It's a bit more complex than this - since unlike a ground vehicle, many vehicles (especially those which are flying longer distances) can't just stop in their bounding box until the next one is free. And regardless of the vehicle type, none can wait indefinitely. Thus, you need confidence that the entire path - in 4D - is clear before setting out.

I'm actually running an effort at Airbus' A^3 division to study this exact question - how to architect new air traffic systems to (safely!) enable extremely high density operations of drones, UAVs, autonomous air taxis, etc. And we're hiring.

Project info: https://www.airport-technology.com/features/airbuss-foray-ai...

Job listings: https://www.airbus-sv.com/jobs/ , under Altiscope

> Something like this for big planes would save massive amounts of fuel, because algorithms could be used to match flight patterns with weather maps to get a tailwind or uplift

Flight planners already do this manually for airlines, when creating flight plans

Yup. My housemate works for Southwest Airlines as a Flight Dispatcher, and evidently it's a career path that's in need of workers.

https://www.sheffield.com/articles/aircraft-dispatcher

Or, conversely, an AI based startup idea...

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