Runway Reconstruction, Rain Delay JFK Departures

Only about 61 percent of planes departed on time from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in the first full month of a reconstruction project that began on March 1, leaving the airport without the use of one of four runways for 120 days.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK and other New York City-area airports, said improvements to the runway at the airport, once complete, "will reduce delays overall by an estimated 10,500 hours per year."

Last year, about 78 percent of JFK departures in March were on time, according to FlightStats.

FlightStats, however, also attributed the sluggish on-time performance to severe rain that battered Eastern airports last month, as evidenced by low on-time percentages at JFK's neighboring airports. For example, only about 65 percent of departures from New York's LaGuardia made it out on time and Newark Liberty posted a 66 percent on-time departure rating.

In aggregate, however, North American airlines boosted on-time performance last month, landing 80 percent of their flights on time thanks to "relatively benign" weather across the system, compared with 73 percent on time in February and 77 percent in January, FlightStats reported today. "The March 2010 performance mark outpaced the same month's performance in the three previous years," FlightStats noted.