Do something for New York airspace congestion now
To deal with New York’s chronic air traffic congestion problems, the Transportation Department has proposed flight caps and a novel auction for landing and take-off slots at JFK and Newark. But its approach has left the airlines howling.
Unfortunately, this problem is partially the responsibility of the airlines that can’t seem to control their desire to fit almost a hundred flights into an 83-flight space. It is also the fault of lawmakers who have not earmarked funds to allow the government agencies to modernize the air traffic control system.
Stories have been written for years about how delays on the East Coast have a ripple effect across the country. The problems are not limited to the New York airspace. However, that is where they seem to be the worst.
Everyone from airlines to Senate committees to Federal Aviation Administration executives to air traffic controllers agrees there is a problem. They blame it on everything from last-generation equipment to air traffic control staffing shortages. They just can’t agree on a short-term solution.
The trade publication ATWOnline reported on one possible solution.
DOT, in an effort to reduce flight delays and congestion in the New York market, has proposed giving all airlines operating at JFK and EWR up to 20 slots a day for 10 years, with 10%-20% of slots above the baseline level auctioned off.
These proposed flight caps and the slot auctions are the only reasonable actions that will change the situation at JFK and Newark in the coming months. They will give the FAA (and airlines) a chance to catch their breath as they go down the road to improving the air traffic control system.
However, the airlines and their minions are claiming that caps and the slot auctions are illegal and the real solution is improving the air traffic system. But Congress still has not managed to figure out a way to pay for the changes and the bill has recently been sent back to committee.
Even if the money was appropriated today, the new systems would not be in place for another five years at a minimum.
Without noting their inability to manage to pass a bill to allow funding of alternatives, congressmen are beginning to take sides. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar called the proposed rule “repugnant.” Now Senator Schumer has chimed in helpfully with, “get off this goofy, harebrained scheme to auction off slots. It won’t solve a thing.”
He is correct about depending on caps and slot auctions as a long-term solution. However, the real culprits are those grumbling the loudest — the airlines and Congress.
The caps and slot auctions are an admittedly imperfect temporary fix that possibly can stem the plague of delays in the New York airspace. While the DOT keeps landings and departures at a set level, perhaps Congress can figure out a way to fund a new air traffic control system. Then DOT and the FAA can get to work installing the upgraded operations and the airlines can begin to spend the millions of dollars needed to reconfigure their cockpit electronics with 21st-century equipment.
You may also be interested in these articles
- Newark slot auction test facing stiff opposition and getting support
- FAA, DOT and airlines battle over solutions to NY airspace crowding
- Internal memo details American flight cuts at LaGuardia
- Slots for sale: government plans to auction off landing rights in New York
- The coming dogfight over New York’s airspace
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If we’d tolerated current practices 65 years ago, we’d all be speaking German now and there’d be no Jews
well ….. maybe the Germans were strongly into rules too then ……