Runways and taxiways at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport will become more efficient, aircraft on the ground will be tracked more closely and greater use of the largest passenger and cargo planes will increase capacity as a result of $68 million in improvement programs approved this summer by the The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which governs the airports.
The projects are part of a 10-year capital improvement plan launched in 2007 that includes short-term and long-term ventures at the Port Authority's four New York-region airports: JFK, Newark, LaGuardia and Newburgh, N.Y.-based Stewart International Airport.
Port Authority officials characterized the latest airport improvement plans as ways to reduce flight delays. The agency has battled the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration over a plan, currently suspended, to auction slots at Newark as part of a FAA program to mitigate delays
(BTNonline, Aug. 29)."The announced measures build on the Port Authority's Flight Delay Task Force's conclusion that reducing flight delays requires making capacity-expanding investments in the nation's aviation system," said Port Authority chairman Anthony Coscia. "We now call on our federal partners to do their part and begin replacing the decades-old air traffic control system at our nation's airports, beginning with the three major airports in the New York area."
At JFK, work will include the installation of a ground surveillance system that works like a global positioning system to pinpoint the exact location of all aircraft, said Port Authority spokesman Pasquale DiFulco.
Information gathered will be used to manage swifter movement of aircraft between terminals and runways, saving more than $10 million annually in operating costs and the value of passengers' time as calculated using federally established standards, he added.
Also at JFK, said DiFulco, two taxiways by August 2010 will be extended to improve departure procedures on runway 22R. The improvements will cut takeoff times by up to 2.5 minutes for every departure, "equaling more than $82 million in annual savings," he said. Construction of a hold pad on a third taxiway, targeted to be in place in October 2009, would create more efficient queuing and sequencing procedures for runway 4L departures, reducing delays by about one minute per flight for an annual savings of about $24 million, DiFulco said.
The Port Authority also finalized plans to remodel JFK Terminals 2 and 3 by year-end, the last terminals to be reworked, he said.
Newark Airport will widen 32 taxiway intersections to significantly increase the amount of available taxi routes for larger aircraft, such as the Boeing 777 and Airbus A340-600, DiFulco said. "That will create greater flexibility for air controllers to sequence departures and reduce taxi times for all aircraft," he said.
Meanwhile, in connection with a $15 million study of proposed upgrades at LaGuardia Airport, "plans will be announced in the coming months for LaGuardia's modernization that will include remodeling the central terminal building, particularly its front, reworking in some way the 'finger system' of concourses and adding gates. Projects are expected to be completed sometime in the middle of the next decade," DiFulco said.
At the Port Authority's newest airport, Stewart International, which it began operating last year
(BTNonline, March 19, 2007), $500 million has been designated for improvements, DiFulco said, including "hundreds more parking spaces over time, the creation of a Federal Inspection Station as well as terminal and airfield improvements, with more changes based on need."
In a move to preserve and expand air services at Stewart, the Port Authority last month announced it would waive the fees for the next six months that airlines normally pay to land, park and use terminal facilities.