DOT Inspector General Says A Third Of New York Flights Delayed Or Cancelled

The Department of Transportation Office of the Inspector General has found that as many as one third of flights to and from the New York region's three primary airports were cancelled or delayed in 2009, which is still an improvement over the 40 percent delay or cancellation rate it found in 2007.

In a report to the FAA, the OIG found that there were three primary reasons for the cancellations and delays: crowded airspace due to the close proximity and high volume of flight operations of the three main New York airports; airport capacity constraints; and continued growth in air traffic during the last 10 years, in part due to the phase-out of flight limits (caps) from 2000 to 2007.

In a report summary on the DOT website, the OIG said the re-establishment of those caps at Kennedy in 2008, along with the implementation of caps for the first time at Newark that same year, had little effect on overall congestion. " While there is substantial agreement that New York delays have a nationwide "ripple effect," the extent and nature of their impact are largely unknown. FAA's efforts to measure this effect are in the developmental stage and require additional work to provide a full understanding of delay propagation," the report said.

The DOT OIG says it made four recommendations to FAA aimed at reexamining its flight caps, enhancing existing flight data, and developing a viable methodology for understanding delay propagation effects. Specifically, the OIG recommended that the FAA:

• Reexamine flight caps at Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark airports, basing the caps on more realistic airport operating conditions, air carrier scheduling practices, and a goal towards reducing delays to an acceptable rate. In considering an acceptable rate and length of delay, FAA should incorporate the views of air carriers, the airport operator, and passenger groups as well as lessons learned from other slot-controlled airports.
• Establish a working group of air carriers, academia, and other aviation research organizations to enhance the understanding of delay propagation (e.g., develop viable analytic methodologies, useful database structures, and common terms of reference).
• Enhance existing flight delay data by obtaining aircraft tail numbers for domestic and international flight operations of U.S. air carriers in order to better study and manage the propagation effect of flight delays.
• Complete development of a viable methodology for measuring the dynamics of flight delays at New York (as well as other U.S. airports) and their propagation nationwide. This methodology should include the ability to measure both the amount of delay time being propagated and the number of subsequent flights being impacted.

Analysis Of New York Flights Prepared By BTS, DOT

The Inspector General says that the FAA fully concurred with one recommendation and partially concurred with three. They have requested that FAA provide a new written response addressing specific issues with these three recommendations within 30 days.

FMI: www.oig.dot.gov