Regarding the April 25, Subcommittee on Aviation, Hearing on FAA's Capacity
Benchmarks
2:00 p.m., 2167 Rayburn House Office Building
US-CITIZENS AVIATION WATCH ASSOCIATION (US-CAWA) is concerned about the
implementation of peak-time market based incentives as the only tool to control
airport congestion.
Peak-time market-based incentives will likely cause other problems, and not
lead to reducing congestion during High Density Rule hours, but will most
probably lead to an overall increase in the number of flights operated.
Over the next few years, the number of flights will increase dramatically
with the extraordinary doubling by the year 2010, as predicted to occur by
the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space
Agency (NASA) in a recent, internal document.
Some of the problems with the peak-time market scheme are:
* The slots are so valuable that if not immediately filled, eventually and
certainly they will be.
* Aircraft during peak hours will probably have reduced load factors
because of higher priced tickets thereby increasing the number of flights
needed to handle large numbers of price-displaced travelers during non-peak
hours.
* A shift of flights to non-peak hours would thus merely shift them to late
evening and night hours and would increase total noise levels during
"quiet"
or "curfew" hours. These additional noise increases will be
exacerbated by
the ripple effect from airports elsewhere from which planes will also be
flying later at night and earlier morning.
* The peak-time pricing scheme would have anti-democratic consequences to
those persons without the affluent means to travel during peak daytime
hours. This would further add to the gulf between the haves and the
have-nots by forcing poorer people to travel late at night and on the
red-eye specials. Additionally, many persons might have to either wait many
hours at an intermediate airport or stay in a hotel before taking connecting
flights to their destination airports.
* There would be an adverse impact of higher fares on tour operators'
packages, for most tour groups must travel during daylight time, usually
leaving early in order to get travelers to their cruise ships or whatever.
In addition, higher fares could, conceivably, have a negative effect upon
tour sales by blocking access to them by the less affluent.
Thus, it is most apparent that other options such as flight caps and
lotteries are a better answer to short-term congestion problems.
Additionally, any slot allocation, particularly at airports located in the
vicinity of major residential areas, should give preference to aircraft that
have noise and gaseous emissions that are above the statutory minimum.
Preferential allocation on the basis of an aircraft’s environmental
performance would provide a constant incentive to develop reduced noise and
gaseous emissions as a factor of competition.
It is to be noted, with much interest, that many of the massive and
unparalleled delay problems the flying public has been experiencing were
predicted, if Congress were to remove flight caps at slot controlled
airports, by a 1995 Department of Transportation (DOT) Report to Congress.
The recently passed, controversial AIR-21 aviation bill and other exceptions
to the slot rule added more flights into slot controlled airports and thus
causing consequent massive delays system wide. In effect, many are to blame
for the delays for not heeding the DOT warning of 1995.
NASA and the FAA also lately predict that there is no foreseeable fix
capable of alleviating the unacceptable delay problems any time before the
year 2015, if then.
We of US-CAWA believe that several previous Congress and Administrations’
have wasted billions of dollars on an inefficient and the least sustainable
form of transportation for which correctives to its problems are simply
unattainable. We also believe that we need to be developing other modes of
mass transit for long-term relief and competition.
US-Citizens Aviation Watch Association / www.us-caw.org
# # #
US-CAWA is a national organization representing approximately 1.5 million
members in the United States. As a nongovernmental organization, it also has
members and affiliate organizations in at least twenty-seven other
countries.
A full text version on Peak-time pricing will be submitted when the call for
comments is addressed in the Federal Register at a later date.
Contact: Jack Saporito, 630-415-3370