Another Bad Summer Is in the Air, FAA Says
Congestion at eight major airports during peak hours or in bad weather will seriously disrupt air travel across the nation during the busy summer season, according to a study by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Officials said the congestion could match or exceed last summer’s delays, which inconvenienced tens of millions of vacation-season travelers and prompted congressional scrutiny. The biggest reason behind the problem is that airport capacity hasn’t kept up with the soaring volume of air travel, the FAA said.
“Aviation congestion is reaching crisis proportions,” Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee’s aviation subcommittee, said at a hearing Wednesday at which the FAA findings were presented. “Last year was the worst on record for airline delays, and this summer could be as bad if not worse.”
Los Angeles International and 22 other major airports generally will have sufficient capacity to handle flights without substantial delays, the study shows, although passengers likely will encounter delays caused by a “ripple effect” from more congested facilities.
Seven of the eight most congested airports are in the eastern U.S., the exception being San Francisco, the FAA’s survey showed. They are Atlanta Hartsfield, Boston-Logan, Chicago O’Hare, Newark in New Jersey, New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia, and Philadelphia.
Discussing their survey of “airport runway capacity,” officials held out little hope of fixing the system promptly, saying longer-term solutions should be pursued. Aside from the obvious remedy of building more runways, a solution often limited by space, FAA chief Jane Garvey said airlines could reduce delays by shifting some flights away from the most popular peak hours--early in the morning and at the end of the workday.
Garvey opposed putting caps on the number of takeoffs and landings allowed at each airport, saying airlines and airports should work on the problem voluntarily.
Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), a leading authority on aviation, complained that airlines “have a propensity to schedule more flights than runways can accommodate at peak hours.”
Oberstar and Mica said that, based on the FAA’s findings, Congress might consider granting limited immunity from antitrust laws to carriers that wish to discuss cooperative moves in shifting some flights.
Both Oberstar and Mica commended Delta Air Lines for reworking some of its Atlanta flights to reduce congestion, adding that American Airlines had taken similar steps to help curb congestion at Chicago’s O’Hare.
United Airlines, meanwhile, said expansion at many airports is long overdue.
“The FAA’s findings confirm the impending crisis facing our aviation system and the traveling public: too little capacity to meet soaring consumer demand,” United officials said in a statement. “Key airports around the country must build new runways now, or consumers will face increasing delays and cancellations.”
However, Jack Ryan, vice president of the Air Transport Assn., which represents major carriers, said scheduling is being unfairly blamed for many delays. Most delays are caused by “massive rerouting of traffic” due to bad weather, Ryan told the subcommittee.
Officials have acknowledged that 19 major thunderstorms in June alone contributed heavily to last summer’s crisis in air travel.
Although officials could not quantify this summer’s looming crisis, Mica said delays last year cost the airlines an estimated $6.5 billion in lost revenue and operating costs, up from $5.4 billion in 1999.
A total of 682 million passengers flew commercially in the United States last year, more than twice the number of travelers in 1980, the FAA said. The number is expected to top 1 billion annually in the next decade.
Among the eight big airports where the congestion is greatest, all had at least 3% of their landings or takeoffs delayed by more than 15 minutes, with San Francisco registering 5%. At New York’s LaGuardia, 16% of all takeoffs and landings were delayed last year, more than any other airport, according to the FAA. Newark was second at 8%, followed by O’Hare with 6%.
But even delays at East Coast airports have an unwanted “ripple effect” on air travel throughout the country, officials noted. For example, an early-morning flight arriving late at LaGuardia triggers further delays when the same plane proceeds to other destinations still behind schedule. In fact, a chain reaction of this type can affect as many as 71 other airports, officials said.
In its airport-by-airport study, the FAA said only slightly more than 2% of flights at Los Angeles International experienced “significant delays,” meaning more than 15 minutes.
LAX can handle 148 to 150 takeoffs or landings per hour, the FAA report says, calling that figure its “current capacity benchmark.”
In adverse weather conditions such as heavy rain, poor visibility or unfavorable winds, current capacity falls to 128 flights an hour or fewer, the study says.
“In good weather, Los Angeles’ scheduled traffic exceeds capacity for only one hour of the day,” the study says. But in bad weather, scheduled traffic is above capacity for seven hours of the day, causing delays.
Garvey noted that the upside to delayed flights is passenger safety since air traffic controllers are required to keep planes on the ground if flying conditions are hazardous.
Technology and other improvements are expected to increase the number of takeoffs and landings Los Angeles can handle by 11% over the next 10 years, with a smaller increase under adverse weather conditions, the report says.
The study adds, however, that “demand at Los Angeles is projected to grow by 25% over the next decade, indicating that delays will increase substantially in the future.”
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Delayed Flights
Major airports with the greatest number of delays last year:
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Rank Airport Flights delayed 1. New York LaGuardia 15.6% 2. Newark (N.J.) 8.1 3. Chicago O’Hare 6.3 4. San Francisco 5.7 5. Boston 4.8 6. Philadelphia 4.5 7. New York Kennedy 3.9 8. Atlanta 3.1 9. Houston 2.8 10. Dallas-Fort Worth 2.4 11. Phoenix 2.2 12. LAX 2.2
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Note: Delays include takeoffs and landings
Sources: FAA, Associated Press
