Airline delays hit record low performance
WASHINGTON (AP) - February 5, 2008 More than 26 percent of commercial flights in the U.S. arrived
late or were canceled last year as rising passenger demand and an
industry preference for smaller planes intensified congestion in
the skies and on runways. The air-travel logjam, reported Tuesday
by the Department of Transportation, comes as a growing number of
air traffic controllers near retirement age - a trend the
controllers' union says will magnify the problem.
The only time passengers had more difficulty getting to their
destinations on time was in 2000, when more than 27 percent of
flights were tardy or canceled. Back then, there were 31 percent
fewer flights than in 2007, when carriers operated nearly 7.5
million one-way trips.
Excluding cancellations, however, 2007 was the worst on record
for flight delays, with 24.2 percent arriving late, compared with
23.9 percent in 2000, according to government statistics that date
back to 1995. The worst month of the year for the nation's 20
largest airlines was December, when more than a third of all
flights were late or canceled, mostly because of the weather.
There is no sign of improvement on the horizon, analysts said,
because airlines continue to replace larger aircraft with smaller
ones. The practice is intended to maximize profit margins by flying
with fewer empty seats, but it also means more flights and more
congestion and delays.
The use of smaller planes also increases airlines' exposure to
rising fuel prices, since it costs them more money per seat to
operate, said Robert Mann, an airline consultant in Port
Washington, N.Y. The industry has said that rising fuel prices are
expected to again cut into profits this year and some airlines have
raised their fuel surcharges to compensate.
President Bush has demanded action to avoid another summer of
record delays, but there is little consensus among airlines,
airport operators, Congress and the administration on what should
be done.
The Federal Aviation Administration has been locked in a
contract dispute with the union representing air traffic
controllers since 2006. While the agency insists staffing has no
impact on flight delays, the union says congestion problems will
worsen unless the government hires more air traffic controllers and
pays them better.
"A smaller, less experienced work force will have an adverse
impact on system efficiency," said Paul Rinaldi, executive vice
president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
In an effort to address the airline delay problem,
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters earlier this month said
congested airports can charge landing fees based on the time
flights land and traffic volume to encourage carriers to spread
operations more evenly throughout the day.
But the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs
John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia and Newark
Liberty, said the new policy was a minor fix for a major problem.
In 2007, those three airports had the lowest on-time arrival rates,
and aviation officials say delays there cascade throughout the
system and cause three-quarters of all flight delays.
The Air Transport Association, which represents the nation's
largest airlines, also said a more comprehensive fix is needed.
The trade group and the Port Authority prefer flight-path
changes and improvements aimed at increasing the flight capacity at
airports.
Under another federal plan, New York City area airports will
start flight caps in March with JFK limited to about 80 flights per
hour at peak times, down from about 100 that had been scheduled
last summer. Similar caps, which already exist at LaGuardia, also
will go into effect at Newark.
The airlines and the FAA, meanwhile, are pressing for a new $15
billion satellite-based air traffic control system, dubbed NextGen,
that will take nearly 20 years to complete to improve operations.
Peters on Monday said the Bush administration's $68 billion
fiscal 2009 budget proposal for the department would more than
double the investment in NextGen technology to $688 million. But
airport operators criticized the proposal for cutting the FAA's
airport improvement program to $2.75 billion in funding, which is
$765 million less than this year.
Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a subsidiary of SkyWest Inc., had
the worst on-time arrival rate last year at 64.7 percent, while
Hawaiian Airlines topped the list at more than 93 percent. American
Eagle Airlines, which operates regional flights for AMR Corp.'s
American Airlines, had the worst December with more than 46 percent
of its flights delayed by at least 15 minutes. Aloha Airlines had
the best on-time arrival rate in December at 93 percent.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)