Airport Backups Are Here to Stay; More Flights Mean More Crowded Skies
By DAVID A. MICHAELS, STAFF WRITER
A congested national airspace reached its choking point this summer, fostering record delays at New Jersey and New York airports that already rate among the nation’s worst for late flights.
By nearly every measure, the flying experience has grown worse this year. Delays have increased. Passengers have missed more connections, and airlines have canceled more flights. Even complaints of mishandled baggage are up.
For the first six months of 2007, Newark Liberty International Airport’s on-time performance was 66 percent, according to Flightstats.com, an online database of airline performance. In June, the number was worse: Only 54 percent of the airport’s arrivals were on time.
The number of late arrivals at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where flights have been increasing by thousands every month, is also surging. In June, the airport’s on-time performance was 53 percent.
This summer’s problems follow the misfortunes of March, when the lethargic response of some airlines to icy weather in New York and other cities left thousands of passengers stranded on runways for as long as 12 hours.
"Pretty much every time I’ve flown in the past five months, there has been a problem," said Eleanor Norton, a Manhattan musician who missed a vacation to the Bahamas in March because icy weather canceled most of JetBlue’s operations at JFK.
On Wednesday, as she waited for a flight to Columbus, Ohio, Norton recounted her recent frustrations: canceled flights, missed connections and long security lines. She flies almost weekly to performances as far away as Poland, but has decided there is sometimes a better way to get there.
"My philosophy about the whole thing is if you can drive somewhere, drive," she said. "The airport situation is just awful."
Hub system blamed
It isn’t likely to improve anytime soon. Even as the airlines’ performance worsens, passengers keep boarding planes and airlines keep adding flights. The region’s three airports, operated by the Port Authority, handled 104 million passengers in 2006. The bi- state agency projects more than 107 million in 2007.
"It’s the most heavily transited airspace in the country, so all it takes is a hiccup, like a storm, in the system to create a very negative impact on the industry," said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the lobbying arm of the airlines.
Nationally, the Federal Aviation Administration expects a system that currently processes 750 million passengers each year to reach 1 billion by 2015.
And though delays are most frequent in New York, the problem is national. The hub-and-spoke system, used by most carriers, means that even local travelers are affected by weather in far-off locations. The hub-and-spoke system relies on flights connecting through larger airports to reach their destination.
"It’s a nationwide issue, so I would not estimate that the delay problem is going to go away anytime soon," said Port Authority Aviation Director William R. DeCota.
Many officials believe the airlines could improve performance if they reduced their reliance on hubs and offered more direct flights. Southwest Airlines, which has one of the best records for on-time performance, avoids the hub-and-spoke system. But Southwest also avoids the nation’s busiest airports, including La Guardia, JFK and Newark, where sheer volume make it difficult to depart on time.
Airline officials say the hub-and-spoke system is here to stay. Without it, they said, the airlines could not offer much service to smaller markets.
Rather, they blame delays on external factors, including bad weather and outdated air-control technology that doesn’t make use of the entire sky.
Outdated technology
The airlines and the FAA are pushing for legislation by this fall that would provide funding for a new, satellite-based air-traffic system, known as NextGen. The new technology would allow planes to fly closer together, opening up room for more flights.
"The transformation to NextGen has to begin now or these delays are going to get even worse as more volume is thrown into the system," Castelveter said.
But many insist the airlines have inflicted much of the damage on themselves. Officials at the Port Authority have urged the airlines to use larger aircraft instead of the 37- and 50-seat planes that are used for many flights.
In 2006, about 38 percent of Newark’s 363,555 domestic flights used regional jets, Port Authority officials said. About 40 percent of Continental’s operations at Newark use regional jets, Continental spokeswoman Julie King said.
The airlines prefer smaller jets for some routes because they enable frequent service and usually mean the planes are full. Passenger revenue is increasing for many airlines after they lost money for years. Last week, Continental reported its highest second- quarter profit since 2000.
"From the business-model perspective, they have the right-size airplanes flying the right routes, at the right time of the day," Castelveter said. "That is evidenced by their success."
Too many flights?
Frequent flights appeal to business travelers, who pay higher fares than vacationers who book tickets months in advance. The competition among airlines to compete for that business helps keep fares low.
But DeCota said airlines have taken the strategy too far. He cited the 23 daily departures from the Port Authority’s airports to Richmond, Va.
"Why do you need this volume of flights to a destination like Richmond, all served by regional jets?" DeCota said. "It makes no sense."
Sensing the decline in customer satisfaction, the Port Authority recently formed a task force that includes airline executives and FAA officials. The task force hopes to issue its final recommendations by December.
"The dream would be that some of those recommendations would be very applicable to winter operations, which are also one of the biggest causes of delay," DeCota said.
Some experts say the problem is more urgent than some airlines think. They say airlines risk alienating their best customers business travelers if the delays continue.
Robert W. Mann, an airline consultant based in New York, said passengers would eventually "throw up their hands and say: This system doesn’t work anymore. I can’t schedule meetings or be productive."
Some business travelers said they would even pay more to avoid the hassles.
"It’s critical that business travelers be able to get there, then get home to see their families," said Don Giordano, an insurance executive from Montclair who flies twice a month from Newark Liberty.
Airports risk a backlash, too. Jay Alcorta, a health-care executive from Richmond, said he concluded after several late flights at Newark including one this month that cost him five hours on the way home that the airport "is absolutely the worst airport I fly though."
"It’s a myriad of problems, but certainly there is too much traffic on the runways," he said. "Sitting there for an hour-and-a- half is awful."
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Better to leave early
Flying from Newark Liberty is rarely predictable, but delays are most common during the afternoon and evening. Flights scheduled to leave before 2 p.m. have an on-time rate of more than 80 percent. Then the percentage drops off:
Percentage of all
Scheduled flights departing departure time on time
2 p.m. – 2:59 p.m. 68%
3 p.m. – 3:59 p.m. 60%
4 p.m. – 4:59 p.m. 56%
5 p.m. – 5:59 p.m. 49%
6 p.m. – 6:59 p.m. 46%
7 p.m. – 7:59 p.m. 48%
8 p.m. – 8:59 p.m. 51%
9 p.m. – 9:59 p.m. 50%
Source: U.S. DOT Air Consumer Report for May 2007
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The latest planes
Newark Liberty International Airport is the nation’s worst for on- time performance, but some of its flights are later than the rest. The flights that were the most frequently late in May:
Percentage of
operations Median
Scheduled arriving number of
departure 15 minutes minutes
Flight Route time or more late late
US Airways 1582 Charlotte Douglas to Newark 3:45 p.m. 93 53
Northwest Airlines 656 Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County to Newark 3:19 p.m. 92 59
American Airlines 2075 Newark to Dallas/Fort Worth 7:05 p.m. 89 57
Continental Airlines 1195 Boston Logan to Newark 4:30 p.m. 85 39
Continental Airlines 1189 Boston Logan to Newark 2:30 p.m. 85 56
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation Air Consumer Report
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E-mail: michaels@northjersey.com
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(c) 2007 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.