GA NOT TO BLAME FOR DELAYS

Bush administration propaganda? Could it be?


AOPA SAYS DOT STUDY PROVES GA NOT TO BLAME FOR DELAYS
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195895)
Weather and the airlines' own scheduling practices continue to be
the major causes of flight delays, and they won't be fixed with
user fees or a modernized air traffic control system, according to
AOPA President Phil Boyer. In a news release, Boyer says a
Department of Transportation study shows that 40 percent of flight
delays are caused by weather and 25 percent by problems within the
airlines themselves, such as maintenance problems, crew shortages,
baggage delays and the like. AOPA dug deeper into the report to
analyze the 28 percent of delays attributable to National Airspace
System delays and found 17 airports where airlines over-schedule
flights.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195895

I wonder what would happen if ATC diverted flights destined for
congested airline hub airports to reliever airports. Do you think the
air carriers might get the message?


FAA FOCUS ON NEXTGEN OBSCURES REAL ISSUES SAYS NATCA
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195896)
The FAA's repeated reference to the need to modernize the air
traffic control system is a smokescreen designed to divert
attention from problems with the existing system, according to the
head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Pat
Forrey told a transportation forum in Dallas last week that while
controllers love new technology and embrace it at every chance,
poor morale and a severe staffing shortage are the most immediate
concerns. "So before we as a nation turn our full attention to
NextGen, and the future aviation system we hope to enjoy, we must
work to ensure that the system we have to use today remains the
safest in the world and one where no corners are cut in a foolish
rush to institute business agendas over safety practices," he
said.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195896

From what I've read/heard of the FAA's push for NextGen ATC
technology, it would seem that they are using every propaganda tactic
they can think of to permit aircraft manufacturers and air carriers to
hijack the US ATC system (and imposing user fees and privatization)
under the guise of addressing the delays.

See if you don't agree:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/trans...ays_08-07.html
(audio and video are available)

Here's something from this mornings WSJ.

Small Jets, More Trips
Worsen Airport Delays
FAA Likes Bigger Craft
But Passengers, Airlines
Prefer Busy Schedules
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY
August 13, 2007; Page A1

At 5 p.m. last Wednesday, planes from all over were lining up in the air to
land at New York's La Guardia Airport. Over the next hour, 41 flights were
scheduled to touch down, but there wasn't room for them all. Thirty-three
arrived late, one by three hours.

With runway space this scarce, you might think that airlines would use big
planes that can carry lots of people. Instead, of those 41 flights, 21
involved small commuter aircraft. Five of them were propeller planes.

The nation's air-travel system approached gridlock early this summer, with
more than 30% of June flights late, by an average of 62 minutes. The mess
revved up a perennial debate about whether billions of dollars should be
spent to modernize the air-traffic control system. But one cause of airport
crowding and flight delays is receiving scant attention. Airlines
increasingly bring passengers into jammed airports on smaller airplanes.
That means using more flights -- and increasing the congestion at airports
and in the skies around them.


At La Guardia, half of all flights now involve smaller planes: regional jets
and turboprops. It's the same at Chicago's O'Hare, which is spending
billions to expand runways. At New Jersey's Newark Liberty and New York's
John F. Kennedy, 40% of traffic involves smaller planes, according to Eclat
Consulting in Reston, Va. Aircraft numbers tell the tale: U.S. airlines
grounded a net 385 large planes from 2000 through 2006 -- but they added
1,029 regional jets -- says data firm Airline Monitor.

As air-travel woes have spread, some aviation officials and regulators,
including the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, have begun saying
delays could be eased if airlines would consolidate some of their numerous
flights on larger planes.

Just two problems with that. One is that airlines like having more flights
with smaller jets. The other is that passengers like it, too.

Illustrating the phenomenon, three airlines flying out of midsize
Raleigh-Durham, N.C., send 21 flights a day into La Guardia. All but one of
the flights use small planes.

That's fine with David Sink, a Durham insurance executive. "There are lots
of flights, so time-wise, it worked out well for me," said Mr. Sink
recently, taking an American Eagle flight home. Given a choice between more
flights or larger planes, he'd prefer more flights.

The FAA once could tackle congestion by limiting the number of takeoff and
landing slots. But Congress in 2000 voted to phase out slot requirements to
open up the airways to competition from low-fare carriers. The FAA sets a
limit on how many takeoff and landings it can safely handle at each
congested airport, but airlines are free to schedule as they want. If there
are too many planes because of overscheduling or just delayed flights
stacking up, the FAA slows down the flow of airliners.

At La Guardia, for example, the FAA allows 75 aircraft movements -- a
takeoff or a landing is one movement -- an hour for commercial airlines in
good weather. If high winds or storms drop that rate lower, the FAA asks
airlines to cancel or delay flights. And sometimes the bottleneck comes not
on runways, but in the air when planes from multiple airports are trying to
get a spot on specific routes into or out of the area. Much of the traffic
into and out of New York meshes together onto specific routes in the
Washington, D.C., area; when there are too many planes, it's like multiple
lanes of cars squeezing into a two-lane tunnel.

Airport Crowding

Trying to tackle airport crowding, the FAA last year proposed a complicated
plan to force airlines to increase the average size of the planes they land
at La Guardia. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, questioning the use of many
smaller planes and their more-numerous flights, says that "from the
standpoint of passengers and from the standpoint of getting the best use out
of high-priced real estate, this is not the way we should be going." But the
FAA plan encountered fierce opposition and is in limbo. "A solution eludes
us," Ms. Blakey says.

Smaller cities say they need the small planes in order to be connected to
the nation's transportation system. Only with smaller planes can a city the
size of, say, Madison, Wis., have nonstop service to La Guardia. Travelers,
of course, much prefer nonstops, for speed and reduced hassles.



Airlines like the economics of small planes. For one thing, they're usually
flown by lower-paid pilots and flight attendants from commuter subsidiaries
or contractors. Smaller jets also let carriers bulk up their schedules
without flying lots of empty seats. The combination of smaller jets and more
numerous flights makes airlines' schedules more attractive to high-dollar
business travelers.

Those regional jets -- planes with fewer than 100 seats -- don't just flit
to small towns. Airlines cram them into their big hubs, too. Delta Air Lines
flies regional jets between Atlanta and both Chicago and New York. United
Air Lines flies regional jets out of O'Hare to six cities -- Atlanta, St.
Louis, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Montreal and Charlotte, N.C. -- all in
the 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. rush. Three-quarters of the flights between La Guardia
and Toronto are on planes with fewer than 100 seats. The upshot: 20 flights
a day, all competing for a shot at a runway.

The small-plane conundrum is, at least in part, a byproduct of the financial
troubles of the airline industry. After Sept. 11, 2001, airlines grounded
older, larger jets that were gas guzzlers. The big jets weren't needed when
traffic dropped dramatically after the terrorist attacks. Airlines
substituted small regional jets, subcontracting the flying.

Now traffic is coming back. But many airlines have deployed most of the
widebodies they have in international flying, which is more lucrative
because it faces less price competition. And because of their financial
woes, U.S. airlines haven't been adding many large jetliners.

Since 2002, domestic traffic by mainline airlines has increased 3.6% in
terms of revenue-passenger miles, which is the number of miles that paying
customers are flown, Airline Monitor says. But traffic on airlines' regional
partners -- which fly the smaller aircraft -- is up 196%. The average size
of jets flown by U.S. airlines, including the widebodies on foreign routes,
is 137 seats, down from 160 a decade ago.

Meanwhile, flight delays have worsened every year since 2003, according to
the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In the January-June period four
years ago, just under 83% of flights arrived on time; in the comparable
period this year, only 72.7% did.

The three big airports in the New York area are the worst for late flights.
But unlike in Las Vegas, what happens there doesn't stay the New York's
delays cascade across the country.

A late arrival for one flight means a late takeoff for another, which will
arrive late in Dallas or Seattle or Denver. Or, a flight from Orlando, Fla.,
to Pittsburgh might be delayed because the Washington-area regional
traffic-control facility moves a stream of New York-bound planes to the west
around storms -- clogging the route the Pittsburgh flight would use.

The problems don't arise just in bad weather. Friday, July 13, saw good
weather in most of the country. But in what's called a ground stop, the FAA
barred the takeoff of flights headed to Newark. Too much volume forced
controllers to keep planes waiting on the ground to take off, sometimes for
hours. Continental Airlines says that in 29 of June's 30 days, the FAA
imposed a ground stop or ground-delay program on flights headed to Newark.

In response to Congress's mandate to phase out slot requirements, the FAA
has completely eliminated them at Kennedy. And airlines have poured in more
flights. Through May this year, the number of passengers at JFK is up 14%
from a year earlier, but the number of flights is up 27%, says the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates that airport, La
Guardia and Newark Liberty. Flights using smaller planes leapt 85% at JFK in
that period, says the Port Authority. FAA officials have reduced, but not
yet fully phased out, slot requirements at La Guardia.

Size Minimums?

Searching for a new remedy, the FAA last year proposed minimum average sizes
for the planes that fly into and out of La Guardia. Currently, planes using
the airport average 98 seats, the agency says. It proposed that airlines'
fleets would have to average 105 to 120 seats, depending on how many of
their flights went to small communities. The FAA estimated this plan would
reduce delays at La Guardia by 37%.

"Promoting larger aircraft is the only means to increase passenger access to
La Guardia," said the FAA proposal. But opposition from airlines and smaller
communities was so strong that the plan is basically dead, says the agency's
Ms. Blakey.

Foes of the plan included the Port Authority, which considers aircraft size
at La Guardia an airport issue. The Port Authority says it could bring about
larger planes simply by writing aircraft size requirements into gate leases.
It says it's studying such an idea.

Former American Airlines boss Robert Crandall says Congress should let the
FAA go back to controlling slots, matching scheduling to capacity. Airport
overcrowding is "fixable, but it's not fixable without major policy change,"
the former AMR Corp. CEO said at a recent conference.

Another proposal: Change the structure of landing fees. Airports now set
them by weight. A small jet pays a smaller landing fee than a large plane,
even though its use of the runway is the same. Why not charge a flat fee per
landing, suggest some economists -- or even charge the small jets more, to
encourage airlines to shift to fewer flights on larger jets?

Yet another idea is to tie landing fees to the level of demand through the
day, so they'd cost more at peak hours. This would encourage airlines to
spread out flights and use bigger planes, says Dorothy Robyn, a consultant
at Brattle Group and former aviation adviser in the Clinton administration.
She says the current system "guarantees overuse of the air-traffic-control
system because airlines aren't charged the true cost."

Airlines say tinkering with landing fees, which are only about 2% of total
costs, wouldn't change their behavior, because customers want the convenient
service possible when they use lots of smaller planes. Carriers say less use
of small jets would make it harder for them to offer off-peak flights. "We
put [regional jets] into some markets because we don't have demand at
certain times," says David Seymour, vice president of operations control at
US Airways Group Inc. Airlines add that less use of smaller jets also would
reduce connection options for people on long transcontinental or
international trips.

With its commuter affiliates using smaller planes, US Airways flies nine
trips a day from La Guardia to also-congested Philadelphia International
Airport. There, most passengers connect to other flights. The arrangement
allows US Airways to offer New York customers more options for long trips.

Carriers contend that without changing rules, the FAA could do a better job
of moving traffic into and out of the Northeast. They note that JFK has four
runways, but usually only two are used at once. The reasons are complicated,
and include a limited number of permissible flight paths, as well as
bottlenecks that can result in the Washington area. A push this year to use
three JFK runways at once has had mixed results.

An almost decadelong effort to redesign the designated airways around New
York to move airplanes faster and more efficiently is still bogged down in
regulatory review. Neighborhoods that might face more noise have been trying
to derail the plan in Congress.

Surge in Flights

The FAA says it is doing the best it can with old equipment and a surge in
flights. The agency's Ms. Blakey says she thinks airlines will eventually
have to switch to larger jets because of the costs that delays impose on the
airlines, in inefficient use of planes and fuel. Even such a shift wouldn't
fix all the delay issues, though, she says: "La Guardia is always going to
be a bottleneck."

With delays climbing, airlines face a tough choice unless the FAA can boost
capacity. Carriers have to accept delays, or else reduce flight frequency.
Not wanting to risk losing passengers to competitors, airlines are showing
scant interest so far in consolidating their numerous small-plane flights
into fewer flights with bigger planes.

On Nov. 4, American Airlines will offer new nonstop flights between New York
and Flint, Mich. American will send a morning flight to La Guardia and a
flight back to Flint at 6:40 p.m., adding to the competition at La Guardia
for precious runway space. The jets American will use: 37-seaters.

Write to Scott McCartney at
















"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

Bush administration propaganda? Could it be?


AOPA SAYS DOT STUDY PROVES GA NOT TO BLAME FOR DELAYS
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195895)
Weather and the airlines' own scheduling practices continue to be
the major causes of flight delays, and they won't be fixed with
user fees or a modernized air traffic control system, according to
AOPA President Phil Boyer. In a news release, Boyer says a
Department of Transportation study shows that 40 percent of flight
delays are caused by weather and 25 percent by problems within the
airlines themselves, such as maintenance problems, crew shortages,
baggage delays and the like. AOPA dug deeper into the report to
analyze the 28 percent of delays attributable to National Airspace
System delays and found 17 airports where airlines over-schedule
flights.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195895

I wonder what would happen if ATC diverted flights destined for
congested airline hub airports to reliever airports. Do you think the
air carriers might get the message?


FAA FOCUS ON NEXTGEN OBSCURES REAL ISSUES SAYS NATCA
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195896)
The FAA's repeated reference to the need to modernize the air
traffic control system is a smokescreen designed to divert
attention from problems with the existing system, according to the
head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Pat
Forrey told a transportation forum in Dallas last week that while
controllers love new technology and embrace it at every chance,
poor morale and a severe staffing shortage are the most immediate
concerns. "So before we as a nation turn our full attention to
NextGen, and the future aviation system we hope to enjoy, we must
work to ensure that the system we have to use today remains the
safest in the world and one where no corners are cut in a foolish
rush to institute business agendas over safety practices," he
said.
http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195896

From what I've read/heard of the FAA's push for NextGen ATC
technology, it would seem that they are using every propaganda tactic
they can think of to permit aircraft manufacturers and air carriers to
hijack the US ATC system (and imposing user fees and privatization)
under the guise of addressing the delays.

See if you don't agree:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/trans...ays_08-07.html
(audio and video are available)

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:41:55 GMT, "Ben Jeffrey"
wrote in :

Here's something from this mornings WSJ.

Small Jets, More Trips
Worsen Airport Delays
FAA Likes Bigger Craft
But Passengers, Airlines
Prefer Busy Schedules
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY
August 13, 2007; Page A1


The FAA once could tackle congestion by limiting the number of takeoff and
landing slots. But Congress in 2000 voted to phase out slot requirements to
open up the airways to competition from low-fare carriers. The FAA sets a
limit on how many takeoff and landings it can safely handle at each
congested airport, but airlines are free to schedule as they want. If there
are too many planes because of overscheduling or just delayed flights
stacking up, the FAA slows down the flow of airliners.

Thanks for that article. It seems to tell the true story: The
airlines are causing the delays, and Congress hasn't a clue of how to
operate the NAS.

With the airlines ordering smaller airliners, this congestion isn't
going to go away soon unless the airlines' hub-and-spoke systems are
modified. There is plenty of concrete unused by airlines that could
be used to decongest today's hubs: municipal airports.

Ain't deregulation grand? Privatization is even better. :-(

Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

Bush administration propaganda? Could it be?

[...]

From what I've read/heard of the FAA's push for NextGen ATC
technology, it would seem that they are using every propaganda tactic
they can think of to permit aircraft manufacturers and air carriers to
hijack the US ATC system (and imposing user fees and privatization)
under the guise of addressing the delays.

See if you don't agree:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/trans...ays_08-07.html
(audio and video are available)

I would agree that one general Republican agenda item is to get government
out of "business activities", and in some cases this may be a Good Thing.
However, I read this article as clueless adherence to a bad plan. The hub
system is the issue because it overloads a few airports and backs up the
rest of the system (one point mentioned in the article, btw). In short,
hubs don't work, and the proposed solutions attack the wrong issues as
though they are the problem. It should be no surprise that such
"solutions" are brought to us by the same idiots that brought us the
"troop surge" in Iraq, yet another example of attacking the wrong issue
while having no impact on the real problems.

Neil

On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:53:16 GMT, "Neil Gould"
wrote in
:

Recently, Larry Dighera posted:

Bush administration propaganda? Could it be?

[...]

From what I've read/heard of the FAA's push for NextGen ATC
technology, it would seem that they are using every propaganda tactic
they can think of to permit aircraft manufacturers and air carriers to
hijack the US ATC system (and imposing user fees and privatization)
under the guise of addressing the delays.

See if you don't agree:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/trans...ays_08-07.html
(audio and video are available)

I would agree that one general Republican agenda item is to get government
out of "business activities", and in some cases this may be a Good Thing.

It would seem to me, that the Bush administration wants to create
lucrative businesses for private corporations by privatizing
inherently government functions. What sort of government
privatization would you characterize as a Good Thing?

However, I read this article as clueless adherence to a bad plan.

I read/heard it as delivering the heavily airline influenced party
line despite its absurdity.

The hub system is the issue because it overloads a few airports and backs up the
rest of the system (one point mentioned in the article, btw).

The air carriers' dogged adherence to the hub-and-spoke system may
have been mentioned, but it was not emphasized nor addressed.

In short, hubs don't work,

The work to a point. Once the hub airports are saturated, that system
results in delays.

and the proposed solutions attack the wrong issues as
though they are the problem.

Exactly. It is that propaganda that I find so revealing of the
airline industry's political influence on the Bush administration.

It should be no surprise that such
"solutions" are brought to us by the same idiots that brought us the
"troop surge" in Iraq, yet another example of attacking the wrong issue
while having no impact on the real problems.


It's pretty clear that the Bush administration has an agenda to enrich
Halliburton and the Carlyle Group stock holders and insiders through
non-competitive bid contracts.