The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Friday lifted a
cap on scheduled airline operations at Newark Liberty International Airport,
effective Oct. 30, and said it would solicit submissions from carriers to
increase capacity this coming winter.
The FAA will lift the Level 3 designation that
restricted Newark to 81 hourly operations, which was applied
in 2008 to reduce congestion. The FAA cited improved on-time arrivals and
departures since that time, as well as shorter average delays and the potential
impact on area airline traffic of a planned runway reconstruction at New York's
John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2017 and 2018.
FAA administrator Michael Huerta in a statement said that
the administration is "open to considering capacity changes [at JFK] when
the planned runway construction is finished."
At Newark, on-time gate arrivals from May 2015 through
August 2015 increased about 11 percent from levels during the same time frame in
2007, while on-time departures increased about 3 percent. Average arrival and
departure delays fell about 33 percent, according to the FAA.