American And Ual Willing To Drop Ord Flights

[Dizel8]

The problem is not ATC, although they are overdue for an upgrade.

The problem is simply, that there is too little real estate. The proverbial ten pounds in a five pound bag.

The runways at ORD can only handle so many flight an hour and that number has essentially been set, based on a beatiful day, with favorable winds, efficient use of all runways, LAHSO operations. If these conditions do not exist, quagmire develops fast.

LGA is even worse, as those who flies there knows, since LGA has even less space to play with.

 

[mjk]

Some progress being reported. link
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American, United agree to temporary flight caps

CHICAGO (AP) — United Airlines and American Airlines have agreed to support temporary flight caps at O'Hare International Airport, but the companies want all carriers to make cuts in their schedules to ease delays.
The two airlines, which handle 88% of all flights at the Chicago airport, also want the right to trade arrival times, according to documents released Monday.

Meanwhile, smaller airlines are concerned that any flight cuts could further boost the dominance of American and United and would lead to less competition and higher ticket prices, according to the documents, which were submitted Friday to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Sixteen airlines participated in three days of negotiations in Washington earlier this month held by the FAA. The agency is trying to ease persistent delays at O'Hare that they say have a cascading effect through the nation's air system.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta had said the meeting was the last opportunity for airlines to voluntarily solve O'Hare's gridlock before the government would impose strict hourly flight caps.

In January, Mineta, American and United announced a voluntary reduction in daily flight schedules by 5% between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m., the peak time for departures and arrivals.

The airport continued to rank at the bottom nationally in on-time performance, forcing an extra 2.5% reduction, which took effect in June. The total came to about 90 fewer flights a day for the two airlines.

About two-thirds of arrivals at O'Hare have been on-time this year, compared with the 82% systemwide goal the FAA sets.

 

[Fly]

That's such garbage. United and American VOLUNTARILY cut flights in January (which the bottom feeding LCC's quickly filled right back up) and now the little guys want American and United to cut AGAIN!!!!! :down:

It's amazing that the government plays this "hands off" approach but they never actually do that. They allow the little guys to force the big ones down but the second one of the legacies shows some muscle, the government quickly kicks the big guy down again.

The LCC's aren't destroying the industry.....government is!

 

[jimntx]

Just FYI regarding the subtitle (STL may see restoration of flights)...

A friend of mine is based at STL. He asked STL management about the reports in the media that AA might move some ORD flights to STL. He was told that AA has NO plans at this time to add any flights to the schedule at STL.

 

[whlinder]

I remember a couple of years ago when UA flew 3x daily ORD-ICT with 737s, now its 5x with CRJs. I can only image the number of markets out of ORD that have undergone a similar transformation over the past few years for AA and UA, replacing a couple of mainline flights with more RJ frequencies. Reverting back to the old schedules would seem to lessen the problem, provided other airlines don't fill the gaps.