FAA Slows Air Traffic Flow Into Busy Sectors

The Federal Aviation Administration, pressed by critics to do something about mounting concern over air safety, implemented tighter procedures Thursday to slow the air traffic flow into some of the country’s busiest airspace.

While the new air traffic restrictions are expected to ease pressure on controllers during busy parts of the day, agency officials acknowledge that the move also is likely to add to the mounting flight delay problem.

More planes are expected to be held on the ground or spread farther apart in flight, officials said in describing the new restrictions.

The FAA said it has already implemented the tighter controls on the flow of traffic into 32 airspace sectors that feed the busy airports at Newark, N.J., Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and Detroit.

In all, about 125 of the 652 air traffic control sectors--most of them high-altitude airspace--were singled out by the FAA as being likely targets for the traffic flow restrictions in the coming months, officials said.

Agency officials acknowledged that the procedures, which include keeping planes on the ground, ordering pilots to reduce speed or rerouting some traffic in the air, are likely to aggravate delays, which travelers have been complaining about for months.

But U.S. Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole said the Transportation Department has already taken a variety of actions to reduce delays. She said the additional flight restrictions are needed to “keep pace with the growth in air traffic.”

“On any given day, the FAA will restrict air traffic in as many (airspace) sectors as necessary to keep the system at safe levels,” Dole said in a statement.

The FAA has been under fire from the National Transportation Safety Board and members of Congress for not doing enough to assure that controllers do not become overworked as the busy summer travel season begins.