It is expected to take a month or more of closed-door contentious meetings between federal, airport and airline officials to determine whether voluntary or imposed flight reductions will fix “epidemic” delays at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Two days were set aside for the initial scheduling meeting in Washington and talks with individual carriers will continue for weeks. But the initial session got off to a bitter start with the Air Transport Association (ATA) threatening to file a lawsuit against the Department of Transportation (DOT) should it try to impose higher landing fees at the congested airport during peak hours.
FAA’s proposals roll back flights to pre-1969 levels. Shortly before the meeting, DOT said it wants operations at New York’s JFK to be capped at 80 flights per hour from 6 a.m. to 9:59 p.m. local time daily, except for 3 p.m. to 7:59 p.m., when the target will be 81 flights. There are some hours in which there are 100 flights per hour.
“The only people to get penalized by restrictions are the passengers,” said Republic Holdings CEO Bryan Bedford, in responding to a question from analysts. “You’ll have less competition, less choice, less frequency and access to some of the smaller communities will be gone. It is a huge burden on the passenger. No one likes delays. They’re expensive, they create operational challenges and frustrate passengers but restricting access to airports is not the right answer, creating more airspace and concrete and getting more airside access is the answer.” He indicated restrictions at JFK would have little impact on Republic’s companies since it had few flights at JFK. “In fact,” he said, “it would probably be good for us because you’d see those flight allocated to other hubs. Still the industry needs a solution short of these operating solutions.”
Vaughn Cordle, chief analyst for AirlineForecasts and a Boeing 777 captain told MSNBC raising fares by seven percent would cut demand by 8.5 percent. “This would have the doubly salutary effect of generating badly needed revenue for the airlines and helping to ease congestion at overburdened airports,” he said.
MSNBC pointed out that New York Senator Charles Schumer proposed appointing an aviation ‘czar’ to oversee operations in the Northeast corridor which was welcomed by industry.
“We support the appointment of a 'czar’ to lead a multi-faceted congestion initiative in the Northeast corridor," James May, president and CEO of ATA  told MSNBC. "No one believes that just posting a 'No Vacancy' sign at JFK is the right way forward. Someone in this new leadership role must be empowered to make substantive adjustments to the management of our nation’s airports and airspace."
To efficiently space flights throughout an entire hour, the department also set a 30-minute maximum of total flights at 44 and the 15-minute maximum at 24 flights. In addition, to evenly spread demand for both arrivals and departures and to make the best use of the airport’s runway configuration, the number of arrivals or departures may not exceed 53 in any one hour period, 29 in any 30-minute period or 16 in any 15-minute period. Related Story
To set the targets, the FAA reviewed hourly arrivals and departures from July 2005 through July 2007. The review determined an increase in capacity, from 74 operations per hour between July 2005 and June 2006 to 81 from February through July 2007. However, during the same period, airlines increased their operations at JFK by more than 40 percent, causing on-time arrival performance at the airport to slip to 59 percent in July 2007, she said.
However, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) proposals center on expanding capacity, improving efficiency, maintaining safety, and allowing the region's airports to meet current and future passenger demand. The airport authority said the FAA proposes a cut in the maximum number of flights at the airport to 80 an hour – equivalent to the cap at JFK in the late 1960s. “If this limitation were in place at JFK last year, the airport would have turned away nearly 3.4 million passengers, or 10,000 per day. Under the restriction, JFK would handle fewer flight operations per day than LaGuardia Airport, despite JFK having approximately 44,000 total feet of runway space compared to LaGuardia’s 14,000,” the Port Authority added. Related Story
ATA said it would oppose the DOT schedule reduction proposal for flights at John F. Kennedy International. In saying that the DOT’s target is far too low, May said his member airlines might be willing to reduce JFK flights to about 90 an hour. He believes there are short-term alternatives available to the FAA that could boost efficiency and reduce delays at JFK by 14 percent during the next summer season.
ATA called FAA’s plan anti-marketplace and anti-consumer, and added that the unprecedented 20 percent reduction in operations is premature and unnecessary, and sets a level of operations significantly less than historical throughput delivered by FAA at JFK. The organization added that “by all accounts, the low benchmarks fail to take advantage of existing capacity at JFK and, in fact, encourage continued inefficiencies.
“Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that the low benchmarks signal willingness by the government to avoid the real problem: heavy congestion in the New York metropolitan area airspace,” ATA continued. “The benchmarks, coupled with the tone and speed of the DOT Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) process, seem to indicate that the voluntary scheduling process is merely the precursor to government-mandated schedule reductions and, most likely, congestion pricing. While artificially constraining demand at one airport may be an easy, temporary solution, it is not one that either this country or this administration should be willing to accept. Solutions to systemic flight delays must embrace growth and a vibrant international market in New York. No one should be satisfied with government mandates that result in higher fares/decreased accessibility for passengers and, unfortunately, most heavily impact operations of domestic airlines.”
In stark contrast to the FAA’s proposal to simply cut flights and limit travelers’ options to pre-1969 levels, Port Authority Chair Anthony Coscia said, “Unfortunately, the FAA's approach of cutting flights at JFK isn't a solution, in fact it’s potentially a recipe for worsening the problem by pushing growing passenger demand to other airports.”
Port Authority Executive Director Anthony E. Shorris said, ‘The FAA’s action would simply put a ‘No Vacancy’ sign up at one of the nation’s busiest airports and then walk away from the problem. But cutting the number of flights at one airport to levels not seen in almost 40 years and declaring victory isn’t a solution.”
The Port Authority says the delay problem can be resolved by expanding capacity through the use of new technology, investing over $1 billion in capital improvements, and diverting flights to Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, NY. Meeting current demand with better management of planes in flight and on the ground will also help.
In March, the Port Authority sent the FAA 17 recommendations for managing current demand and reducing delays that both the agency and 14 of the largest carriers at the airports agreed would be effective and could be implemented quickly.
Unfortunately, those proposals included targeting regional jets, making them the scapegoat for poor airline scheduling practices. Related Story  In reality, the growing number of narrow bodies exacerbate the congestion, said Regional Airline Association in a report last week. Related Story PANYNJ echoed moves by FAA to limit regional jets at congested airports. Related Story
Since last week’s meeting was restricted to airline operators, RAA was not in attendance and it is unclear the tenor of discussions toward regional jets. However, RAA President Roger Cohen, who laid out the regional jet defense, was heavily ensconced in the opening ARC meeting last week, organized at the behest of DOT Secretary Mary Peters to report to President Bush by December 10 on delay reduction proposals to be put in place for the 2008 summer travel season. He said he is vociferously defending the right of regional jets to serve congested markets.
Meanwhile, the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) urged the DOT to invite pilots to any discussions on solving air traffic congestion anywhere in the U.S.
"The DOT's recent efforts designed to trim schedules at peak demand periods for JFK is misdirected," says ALPA President Capt. John Prater. "Reducing flights ignores the critical problems of traffic saturation and lack of commitment by the Administration to support the modernization of our National Airspace System. Furthermore, the Administration's call for congestion pricing offers even less hope. It will raise airfares, hurt U.S. airlines harder than foreign carriers, and do little to relieve congestion.
“Poorly managed airspace, inadequate controller staffing, and a stubborn reliance on 50-year old technology contribute to an inflexible system that seizes up at the first sign of less than ideal weather,” Prater continued. “ALPA strongly supports the use of Area Navigation (RNAV) routes (which provides more flexible route structure), redesigned New York airspace, and adequate air traffic controller staffing.”
"The delays imposed by air traffic control are often the result of communication overload rather than aircraft overload," Capt. Larry Newman, chairman of ALPA's Air Traffic Services Group adds. "The current system of aircraft vectoring is work-intensive for controllers. They can safely communicate with just a handful of aircraft at a time on each frequency."

Side Bar
The PANYNJ Plan
If implemented, the PANYNJ initiatives could begin to significantly reduce delays by next summer, the Port Authority believes. They include:

Accelerating Installment of NextGen in NY
By leveraging the technology currently being installed for the ASDE-X and ground surveillance systems at the three major airports, the initial benefits of the NextGen system could be provided beginning in 2008, rather than waiting five years that current estimates show it will take for the New York and New Jersey region to see benefits from the full NextGen system implementation.

Install Advanced Ground Surveillance Systems
Installing new ground surveillance technology on runways, taxiways and ramp areas will allow the FAA and the airlines to better manage aircraft on the ground. Currently, airports throughout the country continue to use control tower, line-of-sight procedures and old radar technology to manage aircraft movements on runways and taxiways. Implementing new technology for ground surveillance systems would allow for more efficient management of takeoffs and landings, as well as gate utilization and ramp management, reducing delays on the ground.

Adding Additional Departure Route
Currently, the FAA's J80 Westbound departure route is one of the most congested routes in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. The route accommodates westbound departures from the New York, Philadelphia, Washington and New England areas, and the bottleneck, particularly during peak hours, can be crippling. Adding another high-altitude route that parallels J80 will reduce the bottleneck and consequent delays, without additional noise impacts on the ground.

Adding Taxiways
The Port Authority is committed to constructing additional taxiways at each of its three major airports. New taxiways would allow each airfield to handle more aircraft simultaneously, reducing wait times for departing flights to get to runways and for arriving flights to proceed from the runway to their gate.

Improving Navigation Systems to Reduce Spacing
By developing new RNAV RNP (Area Navigation with Required Navigation Performance) procedures, the protected airspace around each aircraft in flight could be dramatically reduced. (See related story, this issue, on RNP, RNAV work at Alaska, Horizon) At JFK, the reduced spacing would allow for a simultaneous all four-runway configurations to be used for the first time. Additionally, the advanced navigation procedures would allow for simultaneous arrivals and departures from all four Port Authority airports in poor weather conditions. Weather accounts for 62.3 percent of the delay minutes in the metropolitan area.

Improving Surveillance Systems to Reduce the Spacing Requirements
By using the most advanced surveillance system, like ADS-B (Automated Dependant Surveillance-Broadcast), the FAA could shrink the protected airspace around aircraft in flight. Currently, Air Traffic Control uses outdated radar technology, which can often be inaccurate by up to one mile causing the requirement for extra precautionary spacing.
ADS-B surveillance is considered accurate to within three feet, allowing for reducing spacing and the all benefits already noted that come with reducing spacing. ADS-B is a central component to the NextGen. This system needs to be implemented in the New York/New Jersey area first, prior to being deployed nationally.
In addition to these recommendations, the Port Authority is asking the FAA to pursue some long-range initiatives, such as the development of four-dimension flight tracks to improve traffic flows and runway sequencing. Current flight tracks take into account only lateral, longitudinal and vertical components of flight (three-dimension). By using four-dimension flight tracks, which account for lateral, longitudinal, vertical and time, aircraft would be tracked to a precise point-in-space at a given time. The technology would significantly improve aircraft sequencing to the runways for departures and more efficient sequencing of arrivals – allowing for a net increase in arrivals and departures, and reducing aircraft emissions as well. New aircraft already have this technology. The FAA should coordinate and communicate this information to improve system performance.