NYT Article on the REAL reason for delays in NYC
Ending a Limit on Kennedy Flights Increases Passengers and Delays
By KEN BELSON
Published: July 12, 2007
Correction Appended
In the past six months, Richard W. Petree Jr. has reluctantly settled into a routine. He boards an evening flight at Kennedy International Airport, sinks into his seat and waits for the pilot to tell passengers that their departure will be pushed back an hour. Then he returns to his BlackBerry until the next broadcast about further delays.
“An hour and a half to two hours in a queue on the tarmac is now absolutely typical,” said Mr. Petree, an investment banker from Manhattan who flies frequently to Budapest, Dubai, Istanbul, London, Riyadh and other points overseas. “No one looks up from their reading anymore when the announcement is made. And the airline acts as if we should expect delays.”
The situation is increasingly common at Kennedy, where delayed departures are now as bad as at Newark Liberty International and worse than at La Guardia.
The main cause was a federal decision at the start of the year to remove the limit at Kennedy on the number of arrivals and departures between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Not surprisingly, airlines rushed to offer new flights, quickly clogging the airspace, runways, taxiways and gates at Kennedy.
In many cases, smaller regional jets that seat only up to 70 passengers account for many of the new flights, yet the demands they place on air traffic controllers are similar to those of larger jets.
This helps explain why the number of flights at Kennedy surged 26.4 percent in the first four months of this year compared with the same period last year, even though the number of passengers increased only 12.9 percent over the previous year, according to monthly figures compiled by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airports. In all, Kennedy handles about 1,200 flights a day.
At La Guardia, where the limits are still in place, flights decreased 1 percent, and at Newark, where the limits were not in place, flights rose 6.9 percent.
To handle the additional traffic, the Federal Aviation Administration has started allowing Kennedy to use three of its four runways at the same time for longer periods during the day. Still, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says that from January through May, 29.1 percent of all departures there have been delayed, up from 18.1 percent in the same period last year.
“The bottom line is you can only get so many planes in,” said William R. DeCota, director of aviation at the Port Authority. “The airspace and runways can probably be handled more efficiently, but that requires new procedures and technology.”
Beset by delays, in May the Port Authority set up a task force made up of airline executives, regulators and other officials to consider ways to loosen the current bottleneck at Kennedy as well as handling the additional 25 million passengers a year that are expected by 2015 at the area’s three major airports.
The task force, which will meet for the first time on Wednesday, can discuss such things as management of the taxiways and gates and issues related to the size of the planes — all factors related to the bottleneck — but it is not permitted to bring up scheduling because of antitrust regulations. In addition, the Port Authority has no jurisdiction over the airlines, many of which support using regional jets.
“There are a lot of markets where the distances aren’t that great, and for fuel and scheduling purposes, it makes more sense to use smaller planes,” said Sametta C. Barnett, director of government affairs at Delta Air Lines. “You have to have domestic feeds to get people from across the 50 states to the international flights.”
In the case of Delta, flights on smaller regional jets account for about 61 percent of Delta’s departures to 86 cities from Kennedy.
The airlines, while deploring the delays, do not speak in a single voice. JetBlue, which does not use any regional jets, says the delays penalize low-cost carriers that do not discount fares. As a result, JetBlue asked the aviation agency last month to reimpose traffic limits at Kennedy if delays cannot be reduced.
“The F.A.A. has a responsibility that demand at the airport does not outstrip capacity,” said Robert C. Land, senior vice president for government affairs at JetBlue.
International carriers, which bunch their departures for Europe and the Middle East at night, are also frustrated because their jumbo jets must also jockey with regional jets on the taxiways.
“The delays are wreaking havoc because we have to pay our airport staff more overtime and folks are missing connections at our hubs in Germany,” said Jennifer Urbaniak, a spokeswoman for Lufthansa. “In every one of these cases, we try to make up for the delays by flying as fast we can. But that’s not the answer.”
The Port Authority is trying to persuade the airlines to cut the number of flights and use larger jets by reminding them of how delays affect their bottom line. Delivery companies like DHL, for instance, promise to repay customers whose packages are not delivered on time. JetBlue has a Customer Bill of Rights that entitles passengers whose scheduled departures are delayed to vouchers for discounts on future flights.
The Port Authority may also prefer that airlines use larger planes because they pay higher landing fees, which are based on an aircraft’s weight. The agency also collects $4.50 from every departing passenger with a paid ticket. That money goes toward airport improvements, and even though passenger numbers are up, this is another reason to use larger planes with more seats.
“If we get more people in, we get more money in,” Mr. DeCota said. “It means you pay off projects faster.”
For the longer term, the aviation agency is introducing new technology that will allow jets to fly more efficiently. It is certifying flight crews to use satellite-based systems that enhance a plane’s ability to make more precise turns as it prepares to land. By doing so, fewer planes to Kennedy will be on paths that overlap with flights heading to La Guardia, reducing delays there.
Some JetBlue pilots are already using the system in clear weather at Kennedy.
In addition, another kind of satellite technology will enable planes to fly closer together, particularly in bad weather, reducing potential delays, and the aviation agency is redesigning the region’s airspace to redirect the flow of arrivals and departures more efficiently.
“We’re talking about satellite systems with a lot more precision that will change the role of air traffic controllers,” said Mike Cirillo, vice president for system operation services at the Federal Aviation Administration. Still, these are long-term solutions for current problems and are cold comfort to passengers waiting for hours to arrive and depart at Kennedy.
Victoria Printz, a business consultant from Manhattan, found that out while circling the airport for 90 minutes on a recent flight from London.
“The pilot said it was his longest approach to J.F.K. since he started flying,” she said.
Re: NYT Article on the REAL reason for delays in NYC
Not only that but something that most do not realize is regional airlines are paied on a completed flight basis no matter what the loads are. The regionals are not affected by flying these routes and certain routes get a higer rate due to thinkgs like being prone to delays on a particular route etc... The airlines are filling the planes, it is making money, and it is getting the job done. Now if the pot being the FAA would stop calling the kettle black and get their act together with our promised new procedures and get the new equipment on the way we would be in much better shape as far as I am concerned. RJ's are not the issue, the FAA and PANJNY are.
