Airport "Choking" On Delays
It is
no secret to anyone there are congestion issues at John F. Kennedy
International Airport. More than one million flights fight their
way through a roughly 20 mile-by 20-mile area. According to the
federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, four of every ten
flights were at least 15 minutes late just through May of this
year.
USA Today conducted an examination to find out the reasons
behind the delays. Some, the newspaper says, will be quite
difficult to change. It contends the airport is, literally, choking
on its own delays.
Available air routes are outdated, the study found. The last
update was two decades ago and controllers simply run out of room
to put everyone. This results in substantial delays. One of the
biggest threats to restructuring the system is area residents
fearing increased noise and pollution.
The newspaper looked at airline competition as a problem. If one
carrier increases it number of flights in and out of JFK, others
are sure to do the same. It's so bad, JFK's leading airline,
JetBlue, is actually backing scheduled flight limits.
Another cause for delay has been accommodation preparations for
the impending arrival of the Airbus A380. Key taxiways are blocked
by construction.
John Hansman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology said these problems show how "fragile" the current state
of US aviation is at the nation's busiest airports. "A few things
start to go wrong, and then it cascades," he told USA Today.
FAA Deputy Administrator Bobby Sturgell believes the problems at
JFK can be solved with the use of new technologies the agency will
be implementing in coming years.
"It speaks to the limitations of the current air traffic
system," Sturgell says.
Change, however positive, will be an uphill battle. Just the
prospect of rerouting aircraft traffic has produced bitter
reactions and contentious public meetings. There has been little to
no support or endorsement by the region's politicians.
The FAA has developed plans to reroute traffic patterns over
rivers, highways and the ocean to reduce the number of people
affected by aircraft noise.
"I'm extremely concerned that this airspace redesign is a
colossal mistake," says Rep. Robert Andrews, D-NJ.
Area congressmen have requested the Government Accountability
Office review the plan.
According to controller Barrett Byrnes, president of the local
controllers union, the bottom line is this: "When you overburden an
airport, as delays begin to happen, you are never able to recover
from them. Once the delays start, it's over,"