Definition
An air traffic management evaluation of the operational effects of redirecting one or more flights along an alternative route, considering factors such as fuel burn, flight time, controller workload, sector congestion, and downstream traffic flow before the reroute is implemented.
Plain English
A check by air traffic managers to see what will happen if flights are sent along a different route, so they can weigh the costs and benefits before making the change.
Context Anchor
Seen in air traffic management when weather, congestion, closed airspace, or other conditions may require aircraft to be moved onto different routes.
Why Pilots Care
Reveals whether the new route remains safe and legal within the aircraft's fuel and time margins.
Intuition Check
Do not read “impact” as only meaning damage or a hard hit here. In this term, “impact” means the practical effect a route change will have on the traffic system.
Example Sentence 1
Before issuing the new routing around the convective weather, the traffic management unit ran a reroute impact assessment to confirm the alternate sectors could absorb the added traffic.
Example Sentence 2
A quick reroute impact assessment confirmed the alternate path would still leave adequate fuel reserves at destination.