John F. Kennedy International Airport has long been a historic gateway to the United States, but in today's world, Alan Levin of USA Today called a recent visit "more like a dysfunctional parking lot." Levin couldn't be closer to the truth. I live in Queens, New York, where not only JFK Airport resides but also LaGuardia International Airport on the northern side of the county. Both airports could be classified as "dysfunctional" during a slow day. Through May this year, about four in ten flights at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark were at least 15 minutes late, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. JFK is on pace to handle 460,000 flights this year alone, 33% more than the turn of the century - and that's only seven years ago.
In JFK, delays hurt the the bottom line of every airline, including the airport's top airline JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) with its 344 flights a day. JFK Airport handles more flights than its local rivals and has grown at a faster rate since 2000 than any other large U.S. airport, according to FAA data. But while Levin and hundreds of passengers face delays at JFK, there are hundreds of thousands of people on the other end of those delays all across the globe. One bad cog in the machine and the world comes to a screeching halt.
The main problem? Air routes over New York were last updated 20 years ago. The Federal Aviation Administration requires controllers to put aircrafts in holding patterns every day because they just run out of room.
Plans to redesign the routes exist. However, local communities come out and scream "not in my backyard." People are too afraid of having their personal airspace become a landing strip for the airport. The FAA believes the number of people affected from aircraft noise would actually drop because of plans to keep additional planes over the waterways and highways. Keep in mind that JFK Airport is on the coastline of Long Island.
Since the promotion of the redesign by the FAA, there has been no elected official in the region to endorse the project. How? I know our elected officials need to fly out of New York at times. How about endorsing a way to improve the public image of the local airports and increase the revenue potential for the airlines by decreasing the chance for delays. Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) told USA Today, "I'm extremely concerned that this airspace redesign is a colossal mistake." I'd like to know what airport Representative Andrews uses.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-11-2007 @ 6:03PM
R Baudish said...
Kevin Shult wrote, "The FAA believes the number of people affected from aircraft noise would actually drop because of plans to keep additional planes over the waterways and highways." This could not be more erroneous. The FAA would like to route 600 aircraft a day over densely populated Rockland and Bergen counties, which is not even in Newark Airport's backyard, and would sharply increase noise. The agency did not even want to meet the residents in the area to tell them this. The FAA won't even conduct air and water pollution studies, even though the area depends on local reservoirs for its drinking water. And the proposal, if implemented, will drive out residents and alter the property value dynamics.
This airspace redesign proposal is being touted as a cure-all for the well-publicized flight delays. However, there are many other major causes of flight delays. They are foul weather, heavy use of regional jets, mechanical failure, computer failure, runway capacity and overbooking. This proposal will fix none of these. The FAA, Port Authority and the airlines should mitigate these areas first before asking the public to accept the burden of any future negative environment impact.
So much for the idea to "improve the public image of the local airports."
7-11-2007 @ 7:16PM
R Baudish said...
Oh, and by the way, please curb your enthusiasm ("increase the revenue potential for the airlines by decreasing the chance for delays.") It's absurd to expect the public to accept a sharply lower quality of life for the sake of profit for a sector. How so Bushian.