New York Times
April 26, 2001

Study Says Some Airports Exceed Capacity

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON, April 25 — At the nation's eight most crowded airports, the
airlines have scheduled far more flights than the runways can handle in bad
weather, a study released today by the Federal Aviation Administration
showed.

And the agency found that the airlines have scheduled more flights than
runways can handle even in perfect weather at four of those airports —
Atlanta, Newark, La Guardia in New York and O'Hare in Chicago.

The other four were Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Kennedy in New
York.

The study, which covered the 30 most congested airports plus Memphis, a
cargo hub, also showed that fewer than half expected to build more runways.
More commonly, planners are counting on new taxiways and other physical
improvements to add capacity, plus changes in air traffic equipment and
procedures. At some airports, demand will grow faster than capacity, the
agency's administrator, Jane F. Garvey, told a House panel today.

"Much of the information in the report documents what you as frequent fliers
know intuitively," Ms. Garvey told reporters. "There are a handful of
airports where demand is at capacity or exceeds capacity."

"The resulting delays have impacts throughout the national airspace system,"
she said.

Ms. Garvey and others said that some delay was built into the system; a
plane may wait for 20 minutes to take off, but the airline, to improve its
on-time record, has compensated for that in its published schedule. And some
of the bad- weather overscheduling is mitigated because airlines cancel or
combine flights in those circumstances.

The eight airports handle 23.6 percent of the passengers; the 31 handle 70.9
percent.

The F.A.A. has had data for years about how many planes an airport can
handle per hour, but had not compared it to scheduled flights until this
study, which started last October. The comparison is controversial because
it raises the idea that the solution may be greater government control of
the industry after two decades of deregulation.

"There are many people who are unhappy that these benchmarks even exist,"
said Representative John L. Mica, the Florida Republican who is the chairman
of the panel, the House aviation subcommittee.

The subcommittee is considering a bill to exempt airlines from anti- trust
laws so they can consult on schedules.

The Bush administration has not taken a position on the idea, which comes at
a time when there are serious concerns about a decline in airline
competition.

"I think an awful lot of the blame here has to go to the airlines,"
Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon, said. "It's a little
odd that the only solution we're discussing is, Let's waive their
anti-trust, so they can get together and collude over schedules."

Ms. Garvey did not blame the airlines. She said that unilateral changes by
Delta at Atlanta and American at O'Hare had reduced delays, and that
airlines could do more to improve traffic flow.

Delta has increased the number of banks of flights at its Atlanta hub to 12
from 10, decreasing the planes in each bank to 75 from 90, cutting the
average delay to 6 minutes from 20.

American isolated O'Hare so its planes shuttled back and forth to that
airport rather than stopping there and continuing to other destinations,
stopping delays from spreading.

But airlines cannot do that at airports where they compete, experts say, for
fear that other carriers will schedule new flights into the times they have
vacated, eliminating any improvement in reliability, and costing the first
airline market share.

An airline expert testified that airline scheduling was responsible for, at
most, 11 percent of delays, with the biggest problem being en-route delays,
often because of thunderstorms. The expert, Jack Ryan, a former air traffic
official with the agency, said, "Nobody wants to institute a schedule that
causes an enormous amount of delay and discomfort for the customer."

Airport improvements will not keep up with anticipated growth in many cases,
the F.A.A. said. But the agency acknowledges a problem with its growth
projections; they do not take account of people and airlines shunning
certain airports because congestion is so bad.

The prospect differs by airport. In testimony before the panel, Ms. Garvey
said that Newark could handle 92 operations an hour in good weather but that
more were scheduled for three hours every day. She said changes in
procedures and equipment would add 10 percent to capacity over the next 10
years, while demand would increase by 20 percent.

Atlanta, which is adding a runway, will increase capacity by 37 percent over
the same period, while demand will grow 28 percent.

La Guardia can never hope to expand capacity to meet demand because there is
not enough room for additional runways, officials say.

Some of the anticipated capacity improvements would come by technologies
that are not yet approved for widespread use, including having each airplane
broadcast its position, and carry a screen in the cockpit that receives that
data and displays it for the pilots, transferring some air traffic control
functions to the air.

The F.A.A. said that the airlines were comfortable with some level of delay,
and that it was not proposing limits on landings and takeoffs, except at La
Guardia, where a temporary cap is in place.

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