Open Skies will see more airlines flying from London Heathrow to New York, but it’s not just Heathrow that is congested – New York airspace is also at full capacity. David Jones reports.
A little more than a year ago, the infamous Valentine’s Day meltdown at New York’s John F Kennedy International airport, served as a watershed moment in the history of US aviation. An unusually intense snow and ice storm led to operational gridlock for JetBlue Airways, which cancelled thousands of flights and stranded hundreds of passengers on a runway for 11 agonising hours.
The ensuing chaos led to the creation of a so-called “passenger bill of rights” at the carrier, and also to the downfall of JetBlue’s founder, David Neeleman, who relinquished his title of chief executive. What we now know is that the JetBlue disaster was not an isolated incident, but a warning about an aviation infrastructure which has long been ignored for too long – like the bridge which collapsed in Minneapolis, or the levees which gave way in New Orleans.
In a January speech to the Partnership for New York City, US transportation secretary Mary Peters said: “We have reached what can best be described as a crossroads moment when it comes to the congestion which is clogging our roads and overwhelming our airways. Gridlocked streets and delayed flights reached record levels in 2007 – a clear indication that our current course is unsustainable.”
Indeed, figures from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) show that annual flight delays and cancellations jumped two percentage points to 26.6 per cent in 2007, the second worst arrival rate in history.
Airline industry officials point to a combination of increased passenger demand and outdated infrastructure as
the major factors. US airlines carried 646 million domestic and international passengers during the first ten months of 2007, a 3.6 per cent increase year-on-year which puts them on course for all-time record figures.
Basil Barimo, vice-president of operations and services at the Washington-based Air Transport Association, said: “We have a system which was designed in the 1940s and 1950s. Now we have so much demand on that system that it’s choking on the volume.”
Not only is passenger demand at record levels, but US airline load factors for the first ten months of 2007 were 80.5 per cent, meaning airlines are running close to full capacity, with few open seats, unused planes or available flight crews.
A December report by New York City Comptroller William Thompson showed that New York airports had the nation’s worst taxi-out times (the time it takes for a plane to leave an airport gate and take off). During the first nine months of 2007, JFK averaged the longest time with 36 minutes, while Newark Liberty International airport averaged 29 minutes and La Guardia, which is used by the major north-east shuttle carriers, averaged 28 minutes.
The study noted that 272 US flights were delayed by at least three hours on the runway in July 2007, and half of those originated at one of the New York airports.
A separate study by economists Steven Morrison of Northeastern University and Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution shows that air travellers are wasting about 3.9 million hours waiting for their flights to take off, and the delays are costing them US$187 million a year in lost productivity.
Further complicating the flight-delay problem is a long-running labour dispute involving air traffic controllers in the US, who have operated without contracts since 2006, and are retiring at an alarming rate.
The Bush administration’s fiscal 2009 budget includes US$688 million in improvements to the US air traffic control system, doubling the investment in “NextGen technology”, which uses a satellite-based system to give pilots and air traffic controllers the ability to see air traffic in real time and fly planes closer together.
While the airline industry has been screaming for infrastructure upgrades, experts warn that the NextGen system may not be fully operational for 20 years. In addition, the ability to expand airport capacity is extremely limited.
R John Hansman, director of the International Centre for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: “There’s not much you can do in the near term. There is some work going on – new procedures and airspace design – but that’s going to take a while. The only thing you can do quickly is restrict the demand.”
The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates all commercial flights in the US, has proposed a series of controversial measures to ease flight congestion, starting with the critical New York regional airspace, which impacts about 75 per cent of the air travel in the US and is the nation’s most important international gateway.
From March 15, JFK will have been allowed no more than 83 flights per hour at peak times, down from the 100 flights which were scheduled at the airport during the summer of 2007. Similar caps will also be implemented at Newark Liberty International airport, although the exact limit is still under negotiation.
Ned Raynolds, a spokesman for American Airlines, said: “While capping total flights, de-peaking the schedules and using military airspace during peak times will help the congestion, the longer-term solution is to significantly improve New York airspace and air traffic control capabilities. We have always said the majority of the New York congestion problems are due to an airspace issue,
not a ground/airport congestion issue.”
Virgin Atlantic said it would “welcome any proposals which will reduce the congestion at US airports”. The DOT has also proposed a plan which would allow airports to charge higher landing fees during peak periods starting in March; however, the agency granted a 30-day extension to allow additional public comments regarding the proposal amid sharp opposition from the airline industry.
Jim May, CEO of the Air Transport Association, said: “The policy announced by the DOT is nothing more than congestion pricing disguised as an airport fee.” He said the plan would do nothing to fix the primary cause of delays, which he said was the “antiquated” air traffic control system, and would “only increase the cost” of travel for consumers.
In the short term, a working group of industry and government executives has proposed a series of interim measures to prepare travellers for the summer of 2008. Plans include installing new ground surveillance systems at New York airports, which will help speed the flow of planes to available gates. Highly travelled routes like shuttle flights between Boston, New York and Washington DC may get dedicated airspace to free up lanes for other flights.
However, R John Hansman, MIT’s director of the International Centre for Air Transportation, warns that if measures are not taken to fix the New York congestion problem, travellers are going to find alternative ways of entering the US. Other officials worry that in the long term, businesses and jobs will follow suit.
REGULATING DELAYS
The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has proposed a new series of rules which would protect passenger rights during long airport delays.
The measures would require airlines to develop contingency plans for dealing with tarmac delays. In 2007, after being lobbied by customers, the DOT fined several airlines for claiming flights were delayed due to weather instead of mechanical or other internal errors (a practice which allowed airlines to escape compensating passengers with meals and hotel rooms).
It also threatened to begin fining airlines that have chronically late flights (defined as a flight which is more than 15 minutes late, 70 per cent of the time), declaring them a “deceptive business practice”. According to the DOT, the airlines know they cannot get these flights off the ground by a certain time and should therefore schedule them for less congested times of the day.
The plan would also require airlines to post data about extremely late flights and increase compensation for passengers who are bumped from overbooked flights. The National Business Travel Association (NBTA), which represents travel managers who administer corporate travel programmes at about 3,000 US companies, urged the department to reconsider some of the proposed measures. It feared the impact the US government would have if it attempted to “micromanage” the airline industry, arguing that market forces should be allowed to fix this problem instead.
However, the NBTA went further than the DOT on the matter of compensation. The DOT proposal is to cap the compensation for bumping at US$400 for flights under two hours, and US$800 for flights under four. Since business travellers tend to book at the last minute, and therefore pay more than the average passenger, the NBTA proposed that the DOT require passengers to be paid the greater of US$400 or half the fare for delays of less than two hours, and US$800 or half the fare when they are delayed more than two hours, or if they are bumped from a scheduled flight.
The proposed changes would apply to flights within the US; however, the DOT is proposing that both US and foreign carriers be required to post on-time performance data.
Meanwhile, the Washington-based Air Transport Association is appealing a court ruling that upheld a new passenger rights law in New York State which requires airlines to provide food, water, restrooms and other basic necessities on flights that are stuck for more than three hours on the runway.
