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Airport woes from New York Magazine
This week's New York Magazine covers the growing fiasco of air travel, from congested skies to travel tips to new developments in the industry -- all centered around the New York co-terminals, LGA, JFK and EWR (or NYC if you're in a hurry).Headlining the feature is an article by Michael Idov, called Gridlock at 30,000 feet, which is an excellent (albeit sobering) look at the volume versus capacity of the New York airports and its deleterious result on traffic across the country. Indeed, it states that "75 percent of delays around the country originate in New York"
Idov does say that there are a variety of solutions and technologies in the works to alleviate the problem. But don't plan on anything coming soon; the bureaucratic jungle awaits any changes to the flight plans or antiquated air traffic control system, hampering any improvement with red tape.
As always, when flying into New York its best to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Make sure you have plenty of time to connect or make your dinner reservations. From a personal standpoint, I flew American Airlines twice this weekend in and out of LGA. Both flights were late by almost an hour.
Gallery: The Coolest Airports in the World
Filed under: United States, Airlines, Transportation, Airports
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
susan Nov 9th 2007 8:13PM
ewr is newark airport !! not new york city! get your facts straight. this is not a tough one.
cornellian Nov 9th 2007 8:37PM
Actually, if you put NYC into an airlane booking engine, you'll get flights from all three, including EWR. Of course, there's a better option if you live north of the big apple, but it's a secret!
bruce forrest Nov 9th 2007 8:38PM
I AM AN AIRLINE PILOT, AND I AM BASED IN EWR. WE CALL IT THE NYC BASE, BECAUSE WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR LGA, JFK, AND EWR. LIVE AND LEARN.
WHY ARE AIRPLANES ALWAYS LATE??? HMMMMMM, THAT'S A TOUGHY.....YOU CAN ONLY FIT SO MANY AIRPLANES IN A GIVEN SPACE. YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY AIRLINE PILOTS WHAT THEY SHOULD BE MAKING, SO THE OLDER ONES (LIKE ME) RETIRE EARLY, AND YOU HAVE A BUNCH OF 400 HOUR KIDS AT THE CONTROLS. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! THE ONES THAT ARE CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR CAREERS WITH NO WHERE ELSE TO GO......WELLLLLLL, PILOTS GET PAID FOR THE TIME THEY'RE SITTING AT THE CONTROLS, BLOCKED OUT FROM THE GATE. CAN YOU FIGURE IT OUT?????
John Kormanik Nov 9th 2007 8:44PM
Well Susan would you believe that EWR, Newark airport is in NYC airspace? Ask any pilot or Air Traffic Controller.
John
Where's Michael Nov 9th 2007 9:21PM
Same area 2 states.
susan Nov 9th 2007 10:16PM
I have to laugh. My cousin lives in Queens and wants to fly to PBI in April. I looked up some flights and told her the Newark had the best rates. She told me "that's not a NY airport." So anyway for someone on the Island, Newark is not an option. Rather spend the extra dollar to fly out of LGA, JFK or Islip rather than drive across a bridge or tunnel. Thought I would stick up for my namesake, I'm a different Susan
Lamont Nov 9th 2007 10:30PM
Maybe 75% start in New York, but the other 25% can be interesting. Yesterday, we were in DFW trying to catch a plane to Okla. City. The plane was there, but they announced it was being taken out of service for an "electrical problem." An hour later the new plane showed up and as we were taxiing the pilot said the electrical problem in the other plane was some mice running loose and they were afraid they would chow down on the wiring, so the first plane was taken off to be fumigated. I have never run into that one before. We were two hours late into OKC, but probably in better shape than the mice by that point.
Michele Nov 9th 2007 11:15PM
I travel from EWR to RSW about once a month, and have been doing so for about 4 years now. We are always having delays, but find that our chances of not being delayed, or having a much shorter delay are substantially better when we fly on Continental. The worse we have found is when we fly USA3000. I always refer to the situation as the "food chain affect"... Continental has a huge hub out of Newark and seems to always have preference as they are high on the "food chain" at this particular airport. USA3000 (which I do still fly on occasion due to price) is very low on the food chain. I can't begin to tell you how often we have waited in line for take off on a USA3000 flight, to see Continental flight after flight cut ahead of us in line.
rpssf2 Nov 9th 2007 11:24PM
The IATA code of "NYC" is a blanket code of all the airports in the New York metro area run by Port Authority which includes a couple of airports which happen to be in New Jersey. They are: JFK, LGA, Newark Liberty and Teterboro.
Bob Nov 9th 2007 11:27PM
While New York may be a choke point the article is misleading. The 75% problem is within the industry and not a city location. There are far to many flights scheduled for take off on an hourly basis.
It's called cooperate greed. The system as designed just can't handle that kind of volumn.
Barry Nov 9th 2007 11:30PM
Newark is part of NY/NJ Port Authority. Anyone who flies alot considers these three to be together. I bet Susan is the one at the front of the line at boarding whining about things that do not really matter. Thus holding things up.
BlissfullyCogent Nov 9th 2007 11:38PM
As we humans tend to react to and correct the big problems facing us only when it creates a disaster, I am fearful of the impending runway incursion or near-airport collision that results in a staggering body count. Two commercial airliners will be involved and suddenly, fingers of blame will be pointed and heads will roll, rightly so.
On a related note of obliviousness to the impending, on an unimaginable scale, nothing we do is going to reverse global warming. The results will be gradual and inconvenient in the near term, but the planet we pass to our grandchildren, with water and food as the new oil, will be one that we would barely recognize.
Gregg White Nov 10th 2007 12:14AM
These stories almost always get it wrong. #1 reason has been mentioned in several of the posts: The number of flights scheduled to depart and/or land during certain hours far exceed the total CAPACITY at the airports. Airport capacity is a function of several factors, the first being the airport engineered performance standards ("EPS"). This estimates the maximum number if aircraft that can taxi, take-off and land on the available paved airport surfaces. The maximum real-time rates can come very close to this figure, under absolute ideal conditions.
Start adding weather (winds, visibility, precipitation-which all reduce the number of aircraft that can safely move on the paved surfaces), construction, equipment (navigation aids, radio communications, lighting, etc), mixture of aircraft of difference size classes ("heavy" jets generate dangerous levels of wake turbulence, requiring more room behind them when landing or taking off), constricted airspace due to close proximity of busy airports, and these rates decrease quickly.
However, the major users of the airports, the airlines, want to have their cake and eat it too. During the hours most popular with travellers, airlines regularly schedule MORE FLIGHTS than an airport can handle. Add to the mix the above constraints, and delays add up quickly and cascade across the nation.
One airline official stated (not publicly, of course) the reason they do this is TO SELL TICKETS. Customers demand (against their best interest of safety) convenient flight times. So a dominant company at a particular airport will schedule as many flights as they can (even if that number exceeds the airport capacity) so that people will buy the tickets. The airline companies KNOW that delays will be incurred. They also know they can blame it on an antiquated system, weather, anything else except their own marketing plans.
And if they DON'T schedule as many flights as possible (and sell tickets), then their competitors WILL. Therefore the market forces them into a no-win situation for passengers.
Just look at rush hour on the highways and roads of a large, populous city. Same forces, same results.
You want an almost immediate cure to the problem (without reducing flights?), build approximately 50 miles of new runways throughout the nation. Problem there is: land- costly around most major airports, and the local folks fight like hell to prevent it. Plus the local airport authorities resist making the investments on their own.
Remember: The TOP REASON is the lack of sufficient runways and taxiways to handle the demand. Very small improvements can be made by updating the air traffic system. The cost to benefit ratios just don't justify the investments. In the last several years, the airborne capacity of the system was DOUBLED by decreasing the aircraft separation standards between airborne aircraft (this was accomplished primarily because navigation and flight management equipment have improved dramatically)
However, this last year has seen dramatic increases in delays. IF the air traffic system were the problem, this DOUBLING of airborne capacity should have yielded a DECREASE in delays.
You can double, triple, quadruple airborne capacity. You can spend tens of billions of dollars on newer, more sophisticated equipment. However, the physics of flight WILL NOT CHANGE and a runway or taxiway will accomodate only so many aircraft at any time.
No one wants to address that ugly "R" word, regulation (oooh, scary). Therefore the ONLY realist solution at least for the next couple of decades is a massive program to add runways to the existing airports, or even build new ones.
DO NOT listen to the bleating of the airlines. They are using every trick they can think of to deflect the blame away from the real problem. Why? Because if they acknowledged this, they would have to accept responsibility for the position the industry finds itself in.
And in this modern day, NO ONE wants to accept responsibility for anything.
Have a safe, albeit late, flight!
foxxydrummer Nov 10th 2007 12:55AM
Gregg White's comment is right on the mark! If anyone is interested in a new runway, we've got a brand new one here in STL (11 - 29) that is only used by 20 flights a day. And it only cost the flying public 1.3 billion dollars! STL could have had a brand new airport for that money, but congressmen Gephardt & Clay pork-barrelled that one through. We still have a 70 year old land-locked airport instead of something modern like Denver or LAS.
Mike Nov 10th 2007 3:20AM
As an Air Traffic Controller about to retire at age 46, I relate to #3 Bruce Forest's comments. Just insert the word "controller" where he says "pilot".
I also agree with most of the comments by Gregg White #14. He must be a controller.
The solution to air traffic delays put forth by airlines has always been more direct routes ["free flight"] and less regulation.
Every airline wants to launch their flights at prime times such as 6 am; 6pm etc, because these flight times are easy to search by airline employees [that's what customers ask for; not 5:55] and on the net.
You can launch every aircraft in the country when ever they want towards, say, SFO and when they get there; by even the most direct, fuel efficient routes; they can only land so fast.
I can stack up aircraft in the sky all day and watch them spin around, but I don't know how to lay concrete in the volume that it would take to put airplanes on the ground faster.
There's no where to land all those planes at the same time!
Guess what. Back in the days of REGULATION after the ATC strike there were far fewer delays than now. True, there were less flights, but there were fewer controllers and prehistoric technology.
Regulation went away because the Federal Government wanted to show the public that all was well [recovered from the strike] and to appease the airlines. With more flights these days, it may be time to see it again.
Results of De-Regulation: delays; and many larger airlines forced smaller ones out of business resulting in less competition and higher ticket prices.
The only solutions to delays that I can see:
1) Build more airports, but not next to MY house.
2) Add more runways to existing airports. [Environmentalists would love another runway sticking out into SF Bay]
3) Regulate departure/arrival times for all flights. Airlines would complain, but most seem to be running very well despite claiming near bankrupty for decades.
Software upgrades for airlines and ticket brokers which would offer a "window" of departure times as opposed to a hard "6am" should be able to lesson the airlines hard line stance for all wanting the same departure/arrival times.
The public can help by looking for departure times outside the norm.
Some info as to who's watching you fly-
Most of the controllers working now were hired right after the Aug 3, 1981 strike and are elegible to retire with pension after 25 years.
Guess what? Twenty-five years is here! We're gone! I have 15 more shifts! I don't want to be in this environment any more!
Within the next few years the Air Traffic system will have the youngest, most inexperienced work force since the few years following the 1981 strike.
The new, young kids in air traffic control are getting screwed over with much lower salaries than they signed up for, which has helped to create a poisonous environment from which no good can come.
Imagine getting hired on a few days after your co-worker and then working that same job next to him or her for 25 years for 30% less pay!
You could say there are a lot of controllers with "attitude". [Like saying gas prices are a bit high]
Young trainee controllers are quiting almost as fast as experienced controllers are retiring. No good can come of this.
We have trained the youngsters to the best of our abilities and by and large they are a fine group.
That being said, I think that the controllers who trained me back in the early 1980's were, on average better than those that they left behind.
Something seems to be lost in transition with each loss of Controller strata; just about every 5 to 10 years.
I've seen a dramatic slide in the pride in work over the past two decades.
This isn't to say that there aren't a lot of people out there who care about doing a great job, but most folks these days seem to just be in it for the paycheck, as if they're doing some mindless job that has no bearing on others.
Personally, I'm not that big on flying, but some times I have to. Dealing with all the new security delays and airline "designed" delays just isn't my thing.
I wish the best for my brethren and the flying public.
I can't claim to be optimistic.
Signing off,
RP
suzanne Nov 10th 2007 4:35AM
Islip airport is great if you want to fly from florida to the hamptons and back.No gridlock in those friendly skies.My sister visits me every summer!No problems yet.
Pam Beccaria Nov 10th 2007 6:11AM
I had to fly from JFK to Sydney four days after 9/11 to take care of my mother - as you can imagine, that was an ordeal! Passengers cooperated fully because they were frightened. When I arrived back just one month later, I stood in no less than five checkpoint lines with fellow passengers to board my plane, and it was like the World Trade Center incident had never happened. I heard impatience, anger and frustration, but no fear. I have a great respect for the day I flew out of JFK, and I will always wait patiently, no matter what caused the delay.
Jim Nov 14th 2007 2:28PM
Susan,
EWR is Newark Liberty Airport. It is considered by ALL in the air industry to be one of the 3 New York City area airports. It is just outside of NYC. Susan, before commenting get your facts straight, it shouldn't be that tough.
Andy Feb 26th 2008 5:20PM
1Nov 9th 2007 @ 8:13PM
susan said...
ewr is newark airport !! not new york city! get your facts straight. this is not a tough one.
2Nov 9th 2007 @ 8:37PM
cornellian said...
Actually, if you put NYC into an airlane booking engine, you'll get flights from all three, including EWR. Of course, there's a better option if you live north of the big apple, but it's a secret!
3Nov 9th 2007 @ 8:38PM
bruce forrest said...
I AM AN AIRLINE PILOT, AND I AM BASED IN EWR. WE CALL IT THE NYC BASE, BECAUSE WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR LGA, JFK, AND EWR. LIVE AND LEARN.
WHY ARE AIRPLANES ALWAYS LATE??? HMMMMMM, THAT'S A TOUGHY.....YOU CAN ONLY FIT SO MANY AIRPLANES IN A GIVEN SPACE. YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY AIRLINE PILOTS WHAT THEY SHOULD BE MAKING, SO THE OLDER ONES (LIKE ME) RETIRE EARLY, AND YOU HAVE A BUNCH OF 400 HOUR KIDS AT THE CONTROLS. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! THE ONES THAT ARE CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR CAREERS WITH NO WHERE ELSE TO GO......WELLLLLLL, PILOTS GET PAID FOR THE TIME THEY'RE SITTING AT THE CONTROLS, BLOCKED OUT FROM THE GATE. CAN YOU FIGURE IT OUT?????
4Nov 9th 2007 @ 8:39PM
Jim said...
Susan,
EWR is Newark Liberty Airport. It is considered by ALL in the air industry to be one of the 3 New York City area airports. It is just outside of NYC. Susan, before commenting get your facts straight, it shouldn't be that tough.
5Nov 9th 2007 @ 8:44PM
John Kormanik said...
Well Susan would you believe that EWR, Newark airport is in NYC airspace? Ask any pilot or Air Traffic Controller.
John
6Nov 9th 2007 @ 9:21PM
Where's Michael said...
Same area 2 states.
7Nov 9th 2007 @ 10:16PM
susan said...
I have to laugh. My cousin lives in Queens and wants to fly to PBI in April. I looked up some flights and told her the Newark had the best rates. She told me "that's not a NY airport." So anyway for someone on the Island, Newark is not an option. Rather spend the extra dollar to fly out of LGA, JFK or Islip rather than drive across a bridge or tunnel. Thought I would stick up for my namesake, I'm a different Susan
8Nov 9th 2007 @ 10:30PM
Lamont said...
Maybe 75% start in New York, but the other 25% can be interesting. Yesterday, we were in DFW trying to catch a plane to Okla. City. The plane was there, but they announced it was being taken out of service for an "electrical problem." An hour later the new plane showed up and as we were taxiing the pilot said the electrical problem in the other plane was some mice running loose and they were afraid they would chow down on the wiring, so the first plane was taken off to be fumigated. I have never run into that one before. We were two hours late into OKC, but probably in better shape than the mice by that point.
9Nov 9th 2007 @ 11:15PM
Michele said...
I travel from EWR to RSW about once a month, and have been doing so for about 4 years now. We are always having delays, but find that our chances of not being delayed, or having a much shorter delay are substantially better when we fly on Continental. The worse we have found is when we fly USA3000. I always refer to the situation as the "food chain affect"... Continental has a huge hub out of Newark and seems to always have preference as they are high on the "food chain" at this particular airport. USA3000 (which I do still fly on occasion due to price) is very low on the food chain. I can't begin to tell you how often we have waited in line for take off on a USA3000 flight, to see Continental flight after flight cut ahead of us in line.
10Nov 9th 2007 @ 11:24PM
rpssf2 said...
The IATA code of "NYC" is a blanket code of all the airports in the New York metro area run by Port Authority which includes a couple of airports which happen to be in New Jersey. They are: JFK, LGA, Newark Liberty and Teterboro.
11Nov 9th 2007 @ 11:27PM
Bob said...
While New York may be a choke point the article is misleading. The 75% problem is within the industry and not a city location. There are far to many flights scheduled for take off on an hourly basis.
It's called cooperate greed. The system as designed just can't handle that kind of volumn.
12Nov 9th 2007 @ 11:30PM
Barry said...
Newark is part of NY/NJ Port Authority. Anyone who flies alot considers these three to be together. I bet Susan is the one at the front of the line at boarding whining about things that do not really matter. Thus holding things up.
13Nov 9th 2007 @ 11:38PM
BlissfullyCogent said...
As we humans tend to react to and correct the big problems facing us only when it creates a disaster, I am fearful of the impending runway incursion or near-airport collision that results in a staggering body count. Two commercial airliners will be involved and suddenly, fingers of blame will be pointed and heads will roll, rightly so.
On a related note of obliviousness to the impending, on an unimaginable scale, nothing we do is going to reverse global warming. The results will be gradual and inconvenient in the near term, but the planet we pass to our grandchildren, with water and food as the new oil, will be one that we would barely recognize.
14Nov 10th 2007 @ 12:14AM
Gregg White said...
These stories almost always get it wrong. #1 reason has been mentioned in several of the posts: The number of flights scheduled to depart and/or land during certain hours far exceed the total CAPACITY at the airports. Airport capacity is a function of several factors, the first being the airport engineered performance standards ("EPS"). This estimates the maximum number if aircraft that can taxi, take-off and land on the available paved airport surfaces. The maximum real-time rates can come very close to this figure, under absolute ideal conditions.
Start adding weather (winds, visibility, precipitation-which all reduce the number of aircraft that can safely move on the paved surfaces), construction, equipment (navigation aids, radio communications, lighting, etc), mixture of aircraft of difference size classes ("heavy" jets generate dangerous levels of wake turbulence, requiring more room behind them when landing or taking off), constricted airspace due to close proximity of busy airports, and these rates decrease quickly.
However, the major users of the airports, the airlines, want to have their cake and eat it too. During the hours most popular with travellers, airlines regularly schedule MORE FLIGHTS than an airport can handle. Add to the mix the above constraints, and delays add up quickly and cascade across the nation.
One airline official stated (not publicly, of course) the reason they do this is TO SELL TICKETS. Customers demand (against their best interest of safety) convenient flight times. So a dominant company at a particular airport will schedule as many flights as they can (even if that number exceeds the airport capacity) so that people will buy the tickets. The airline companies KNOW that delays will be incurred. They also know they can blame it on an antiquated system, weather, anything else except their own marketing plans.
And if they DON'T schedule as many flights as possible (and sell tickets), then their competitors WILL. Therefore the market forces them into a no-win situation for passengers.
Just look at rush hour on the highways and roads of a large, populous city. Same forces, same results.
You want an almost immediate cure to the problem (without reducing flights?), build approximately 50 miles of new runways throughout the nation. Problem there is: land- costly around most major airports, and the local folks fight like hell to prevent it. Plus the local airport authorities resist making the investments on their own.
Remember: The TOP REASON is the lack of sufficient runways and taxiways to handle the demand. Very small improvements can be made by updating the air traffic system. The cost to benefit ratios just don't justify the investments. In the last several years, the airborne capacity of the system was DOUBLED by decreasing the aircraft separation standards between airborne aircraft (this was accomplished primarily because navigation and flight management equipment have improved dramatically)
However, this last year has seen dramatic increases in delays. IF the air traffic system were the problem, this DOUBLING of airborne capacity should have yielded a DECREASE in delays.
You can double, triple, quadruple airborne capacity. You can spend tens of billions of dollars on newer, more sophisticated equipment. However, the physics of flight WILL NOT CHANGE and a runway or taxiway will accomodate only so many aircraft at any time.
No one wants to address that ugly "R" word, regulation (oooh, scary). Therefore the ONLY realist solution at least for the next couple of decades is a massive program to add runways to the existing airports, or even build new ones.
DO NOT listen to the bleating of the airlines. They are using every trick they can think of to deflect the blame away from the real problem. Why? Because if they acknowledged this, they would have to accept responsibility for the position the industry finds itself in.
And in this modern day, NO ONE wants to accept responsibility for anything.
Have a safe, albeit late, flight!
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