ACI-NA Statement on DOT SNPRM to Create Slot Auctions at LaGuardia

Airports Council International - North America (ACI-NA) appreciates the Department of Transportation's continuing efforts to alleviate congestion and passenger delays.

ACI-NA maintains that capacity expansion, both at the airport and in the national airspace system, is the most effective means of reducing congestion. However, in those instances where such measures are infeasible or not available in the short-term, airport proprietors are in the best position to implement market-based, congestion management programs at their facilities to reduce delays.

ACI-NA commends the Department's recent proposal to amend the 1996 Policy Regarding Airport Rates and Charges to recognize airport proprietors' role in managing congestion at their airports.

For this same reason, however, ACI-NA does not support, in its current form, the Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM), to create slot auctions at LaGuardia airport. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has broad authority to regulate the airspace of the United States; however this proposed rule does not recognize the inextricable link between the use of the airport infrastructure and airspace. The FAA has the right to limit the number of operations allowed at a constrained airport. However, it is the airport proprietor's preeminent right to manage the facilities it owns and operates within those restrictions and according to applicable law."

The ACI-NA represents local, regional and state governing bodies that own and operate commercial airports in the United States and Canada. ACI-NA member airports enplane more than 95 percent of the domestic and virtually all the international airline passenger and cargo traffic in North America.  Almost 400 aviation-related businesses are also members of the association, which is the largest of the five worldwide regions of Airports Council International.

FMI: www.aci-na.org