People are attending the Super Bowl from more than 900 cities around the world. The Super Bowl will be 1600 more planes into Houston airspace on top of the usual traffic (there’s normally 2500 per day). Twice the usual number of controllers are on duty at Houston TRACON. And there’s a 10 mile no fly zone set up during the game itself.

Aircraft, aircraft everywhere

The Super Bowl fundamentally transforms the region’s air traffic control.

While most of the Super Bowl air traffic actually goes through Hobby Airport, the added traffic at IAH is expected to catapult the “big” airport from one of the nation’s 10 busiest airports to one of three busiest.

Houston’s air-traffic controllers started planning for this weekend about a year ago.

“During the training for this process, I told them this will be the busiest traffic that some of you will ever see in your careers,” said Jason Hubbard, a TRACON manager.