Opening Air Space

For the holidays, Shrub has said he is going to open up some restricted military air space to commercial flights.

I assume that, in theory, opening this space would be useful to the airlines as they could have more direct routes and have more space to move around in. But I question whether the practical afffects of the open air space will be all that much. The airlines have alread scheduled their flights for the next couple of weeks. How much time and effort would go into rescheduling. In addition, I don't know how far in advance they file flight plans for their standard flights. I could very well be wrong but I don't think they file daily flight plans. They will file new and update as needed but the flight that leaves ORD for LGA at 6:10 AM Monday through Friday has probably been filed many days in advance.

It is not to say that the open air space wouldn't be a good policy in the long run. More air space and more direct routes will be increase speed and efficiency for the airlines. I just doubt the immediate, short term advantage of having the space open for only 5 days.