Ord-erly Cutbacks

[BoeingBoy]

Washington Outlook
FAA Seeks Further Schedule Cutbacks At O'Hare
Aviation Week & Space Technology
08/02/2004, page 23

Edited by David Bond


ORDerly Cutbacks

The FAA will meet this week with all U.S. carriers serving Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD) in an attempt to negotiate schedule reductions and relieve severe congestion delays. The move reflects failure of cutbacks agreed to in January and April by O'Hare's big dogs, United and American. The two giants agreed separately to reduce flight ops by a combined 7.5% through Oct. 31, but smaller carriers seized the opportunity to add flights and things are as bad as ever. Now, the FAA will jawbone all of them. One comment by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta may come back to haunt the FAA in a year or two when the agency concludes its long-running assessment of demand-management measures--some bitterly opposed by airlines--for New York LaGuardia Airport. "It is critical," Mineta says, "that all O'Hare carriers set schedules that better match the airport's current capacity and keep passengers moving." Perhaps sensing a future problem, the Air Transport Assn. says voluntary schedule reductions are OK in the short term at O'Hare, but increased capacity is the long-term answer. LaGuardia has no room to grow, though.

Jim

 

[mweiss]

I've thought a long time about this particular problem, and I think I've come up with a solution.

Slots would be leased by airlines, with pricing dependent on a couple of factors:

• Time. Peak demand times call for higher slot prices.
• Number of slots currently leased. Contrary to traditional approaches where the price drops as the quantity rises, slot prices would rise as the quantity leased by a particular company rises. This seeks to encourage the use of larger aircraft at lower frequency, while simultaneously discouraging the formation of monopolies.

I could see the benefit to taking this approach to every airport in the country. Naturally, airports with little congestion would have much flatter pricing, but this would allow for much more rapid adjustment to changing market conditions.

The big question that would need to be addressed is whether the "capacity" of the airport would be based on VFR or IFR approaches. Airports like SFO are particularly sensitive to IFR conditions, which cut its arrival capacity in half.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

congestion pricing has been litigated. I don't think anything has stood up. But that's pricing without fed approval.

 

[mweiss]

Agreed. But this needs to happen at a national government level. If the FAA is stepping in to find ways to fix the problem, then it's time to fix the problem and not dance around it.

 

[Bear96]

Agreed. But this needs to happen at a national government level. If the FAA is stepping in to find ways to fix the problem, then it's time to fix the problem and not dance around it.

Funny. In another post a couple of weeks ago you posted how you thought slot controls at ANY airport was a bad idea-- you know, "let the market work it out."

 

[mweiss]

Bear, you must be referring to my comment

Slots: They exist only at two airports. I agree that it should be at zero airports, but it's a tiny factor in the overall industry.

I should probably be more specific. I hate slots the way they're implemented right now. First of all, slots at DCA are ridiculously political. Second, slots are owned, which is a mistake.

But most importantly, they're clearly not designed to truly manage air traffic capacity. There were no new runways built to enable DCA to suddenly have additional slots. Yet the slots were created. That's artificial capacity, and I'm vehemently opposed to it.

 

[Bear96]

Bear, you must be referring to my commentI should probably be more specific. I hate slots the way they're implemented right now. First of all, slots at DCA are ridiculously political. Second, slots are owned, which is a mistake.

But most importantly, they're clearly not designed to truly manage air traffic capacity. There were no new runways built to enable DCA to suddenly have additional slots. Yet the slots were created. That's artificial capacity, and I'm vehemently opposed to it.

Michael,

Thanks for the response.

So am I interpreting your position correctly, that you think "congestion pricing" of slots would be the way to allocate them? I kinda like that idea myself but I am curious as to your views.

Also, and maybe someone who knows more about ATC than you or I do could chime in here, but weren't some of the increases in DCA slots due to some sort of improvement in the DC Class B airspace traffic management or some sort of ATC technological improvements? I seem remember that DCA used to have a passenger-count limit on aircraft operations due to noise restrictions, but once larger quieter aircraft were introduced those policies changed. Maybe there was something similar in terms of technology improvements leading to the increased number of slots. Just kind of thinking out loud here and maybe I am way off base but does anyone know?

 

[mweiss]

So am I interpreting your position correctly, that you think "congestion pricing" of slots would be the way to allocate them?

Yes.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Reuters
UPDATE - US threatens to cap flights at Chicago O'Hare
Wednesday August 4, 7:35 pm ET
By John Crawley

(Adds meeting ends, DOT statement)

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - U.S. aviation regulators threatened on Wednesday to again cap commercial flights at Chicago's O'Hare airport to reduce delays that are slowing down the rest of the nation's aviation system.

Article

Jim