ATA Says Prediction Considers Recent Record-Setting Delays

The Air Transport Association issued its forecast Thursday predicting 15.7 million passengers worldwide will venture out for the Labor Day period, spanning Wednesday, August 29 through Wednesday, September 5, and use US carriers to get where they're going.

That prediction represents a 2.6 percent increase over last year... and is pretty bold, if you consider the record-setting delays, complaints and negative publicity the air travel industry has been experiencing lately.

"All airlines understand that ongoing significant delays are trying for passengers -- they are frustrating for the airlines as well," said the organization. "The vast majority of flight delays are weather-related -- but, while, as they say, "You can't change weather," when it comes to air traffic control delays, a modernized ATC system would produce major improvements."

As before, the ATA also took the opportunity to push the NextGen air traffic control system as a cure-all for the industry's woes.

"The fact is that a modernized ATC system would enable safe operations under weather conditions that today result in gridlock," said ATA president James May. "It is time for Congress to give the go-ahead for rapid ATC modernization and to provide a fair funding system in which passengers no longer subsidize business aviation.

"While we cannot get in the way of Mother Nature, passengers can demand that Congress fairly fund the sorely needed modernization of our nation's airspace, which can help to mitigate future delays," May added.

According to the Associated Press, delays are at a 12-year high. The Department of Transportation has said since it began gathering timeliness data in 1995, the airline industry's on-time performance was its worst in the first part of this year.

Roughly a third of all domestic flights on major U.S. airlines were late to some degree in June, according to the DOT.

"Regrettably, without congressional action to update the ATC system, delays will only worsen," said May.

FMI: www.airlines.org, www.dot.gov