© Kirit Patel
Here’s the premise: resolve the wretched delay problems hovering over New York City’s three major airports and you go a long way in resolving airline delays across the United States.
“If we can fix delays in New York, we will improve flying for a significant number of travelers across the country,” contends Mary E. Peters, Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary. She made the statement following an Oval Office meeting with President Bush yesterday (Thursday, September 27).
Peters formed a scheduling committee comprised of airlines operating out of New York Kennedy. JFK is home base to discount airline JetBlue, and a major international launchpad for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines. The idea is for the group to devise ways to reduce the number of flights at the congested airport. Her preference, and clearly that of the President is to “let market incentives do the job”. She says she’d prefer “not to return to the days of government regulated flights and limited competition”.
It’s going to take a while to devise, and implement a fix. Odds are, it’s not going to be easy. Some carriers have expanded their flights out of Kennedy aggressively, making the airport their linchpin for international or domestic operations. What to cut, and how to do it, could be painful. One possible result of all this is a dispersion of carriers’ flights to other airports. In some sense that’s what is scheduled to happen next March when Continental shifts some of its regional jet flying from Newark Liberty International (EWR) (another congested New York-area airport) to its hub at Cleveland Hopkins (CLE).
Another possibility is “peak period” pricing. Tickets for flights at high-traffic times of day could cost more than during those for so-called “soft-demand” periods.
As things stand, DOT figures show the delay problem shows no sign of evaporating on its own. Quite the contrary.
In yesterday’s presentation before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security, Calvin L. Scovel II, DOT Inspector General, enumerated the problem for lawmakers in uncompromising fashion. During the first seven months of 2007:
– Nearly 28 percent of flights were delayed, cancelled or diverted with airlines’ on-time performance at the lowest percentage (72) in the past ten years (DOT emphasis);
– Not only were there more delays, but longer delay periods. Of those flights arriving late, passengers experienced a record-breaking average flight arrival delay of 57 minutes, up nearly three minutes from 2006;
– More than 54,000 flights affecting nearly 3.7 million passengers experience taxi-in and taxi-out times of one to five hours or more. This is an increase of nearly 42 percent as compared to the same period in 2006.
Nasty numbers.
While the airline industry and the Government attempt to figure out what to do, and how to make it work, DOT wants “immediate measures” to provide fliers with better data on delays. It also wants updated consumer complaint systems.
In a statement from the White House Press Office, the Bush Administration notes that DOT is already working on rules that would increase compensation for fliers involuntarily bumped from a flight because it was oversold.
Now that chronic, crippling flight delays have got the attention of the highest echelons of Government it will be instructive to see how that Government, and the airline industry, tackle the problem. What they do is sure to affect the way you fly. We’ll keep you updated here at Cheapflights on the plans and the impact.
© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler
