Designed To Cut Down On Delays

The FAA has come up with a way to squeeze another 12 flight operations an hour into the frenetic schedule at Chicago's O'Hare Airport -- but the plan depends on which way the wind blows.

"It's not something we can use 100 percent of the time ... but under these conditions, we think it can help some of the time," said FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro.

Specifically, the FAA is waiving a requirement that says aircraft operating on 14-Right/32-Left must stay at least 10,000 feet from runway's intersection with 9-Right/27-Left. Since the intersection is just 10,000 feet from the threshold of 14/32, that pretty much banned arrivals until departures on 9/27 had cleared the intersection.

The waiver allows aircraft landing/departing from 14/32 to operate within 5,000 feet of the intersection. It also reduces the interval between aircraft arriving on 14 from four miles to three.

"The controllers will still be within the safety standards and separation standards," said Molinaro, in an interview with the Chicago Daily Herald.

Controllers seem to be okay with the arrangement. "If it wasn't safe, we would be screaming safety," said Craig Burzych, president of the O'Hare Tower branch of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "Our main concerns are first, that it's a different operation for the controllers ... and it's going to take some getting used to."

The waiver calls for an end to a land-and-hold-short procedure that forced aircraft arriving on 14/32 to hit the brakes -- hard -- as soon as they touched down. The ALPA objected to that procedure in 2000.

The catch is that the waiver will be in effect only when the winds are out of the south.

Still, the news was welcomed by at least one airline operating out of O'Hare.

"Anything that can be done by the FAA to mitigate departure delays when the winds are out of the south is great," said American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan.

FMI: www.ohare.com/ohare/home.asp