FAA Initiatives Making Headway With Airport Congestion

<B>FAA Initiatives Making Headway With Airport Congestion</B>

By Barbara Cook

<I>New York -</I> Federal Aviation Administration administrator Jane Garvey told the House aviation subcommittee that her agency's spring/summer management plan resulted in an 11 percent reduction in flight delays nationwide in the April-June period, while ground stop delay minutes were reduced by 42 percent, compared with the same three months last year. The subcommittee took the testimony at a July 16 field hearing here, where members focused on air traffic congestion problems in the region.

Garvey noted that the collaborative spring/summer program now includes Nav Canada, the private corporation that owns and operates Canada's civil air navigation service. Other participants are the airlines, labor unions and FAA. Garvey told lawmakers that "Nav Canada now participates in our conference calls with the airlines and has worked to develop routes that will accommodate approximately 400 additional flights per day.

"This, in addition to access to additional military airspace off the East Coast, has assisted us in achieving greater air traffic efficiencies this spring and is expected to continue during the peak travel season this summer. Although the severe weather season is far from over, our collaborative approach to doing business is displaying positive results," Garvey said.

The Bush Administration has indicated interest in Nav Canada, and though officials consider Nav Canada's structure as a potential model for privatization of the U.S. air traffic control system, U.S. Department of Transportation secretary Norman Mineta has said he won't lobby for the concept, since it has no chance of clearing Congress.

In addition to the spring/ summer 2001 plan, Garvey said her agency has completed 13 initiatives on a list of 21 goals to address congestion in the triangle formed by Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

FAA at the end of April opened three new air traffic sectors at Cleveland Center, the most congested ATC center in the nation. "We are working to establish a total of 15 new sectors by the end of the year, eight of which have been opened, to ease congestion and speed traffic flows in the Great Lakes corridor and into New York," Garvey testified. Four more new sectors will be opened by June 2002, two of which are the New York oceanic sectors.

"We have identified a total of 19 new sectors, which will make significant differences in traffic flows for flights in Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York, as well as other Northeast airports by the summer 2002. These initiatives are part of an overall plan for FAA to address operational efficiency at major airports," she said.

Garvey conceded, however, that a central challenge facing her agency is managing the gap between demand for transportation and the capacity of the infrastructure. "Last year, the U.S. airlines reported about 700 million enplanements," Garvey told lawmakers. "That's a 50 percent jump in passenger demand in less than a decade. Our forecasters project that it will grow to 1 billion by 2010. How this gap between demand and capacity is managed is very complex and cannot be solved by government alone, but FAA is committed to lead this effort."

One tool that FAA will use to ease delays is the benchmark study issued earlier this year that estimated the capacity of each major airport in good weather and also in reduced weather conditions. In ranking the country's top 31 most congested airports in 2000, the study found that the New York City area is home to the first, second and seventh most delayed airports in the nation--LaGuardia, Newark International and New York JFK, respectively. "Suffice it to say that the projected demand at these airports over the next decade is expected to exceed capacity, and this imbalance between capacity and demand growth is expected to increase delays," Garvey said. "The outlook in New York is less favorable than in other cities where new runways are expected to help relieve congestion."

Remedies that are under study to ease congestion and delays at LaGuardia include both administrative and market-based approaches, Garvey noted. FAA last month proposed a number of market and demand management options for the airport. "I cannot tell you today which approach will be optimal," Garvey said. "I can assure you that the discussion will be an interesting one, and will hopefully shed more light than heat. The debate here in this community--and, ultimately, demand management solutions that are reached for LaGuardia--will have lasting effect.