Airports and airspace have a limited amount of capacity to accept flights,and this capacity is significantly affected by weather conditions. When the capacity is reduced below the demand,air traffic control has to reduce the demand. In early days,demand reduction was achieved by airborne holding ofaircraft, much like sitting in traffic in your car on a busy street. Unfortunately, holding is not very efficient as it consumes fuel and time,. and can be uncomfortable to passengers in severe weather conditions. Thus, Air Traffic Control came up with ground delay programs, whereaircraft are held on the ground at their departure airport. At lease they are not burning fuel, but they are still delayed. Other methods, such as ration by schedule (that was described in the Flight Prioritization handout for reading this week) are collaborative measures to allow the aircraft operators some input into the delay situation as it pertains to the operationof their aircraft.

Question: Comment on the use of Collaborative tools, and use Ration by Schedule if you like as an example. Are they fair, do they apportion delay equitably across all operators, or is something more required to share the delay across all flight operators?(With reference list)