New York a bottleneck for air travelers

NEW YORK | Fewer people are expected to fly this holiday season, but travelers shouldn’t expect a full reprieve from the horrid flight delays of Thanksgivings past, especially if they need to land anywhere near New York City.

Despite some recent improvements, the Big Apple’s three major airports continue to be the country’s worst air travel bottleneck.

Through the first nine months of the year, they ranked first, second and third worst in on-time arrivals among the 31 major U.S. air hubs, according to federal statistics.

The problem doesn’t affect just New Yorkers. Because such a large percentage of the nation’s flights pass through the city sometime during any given day, delays here have a tendency to ripple elsewhere.

In 2007, nearly three-quarters of all delays in the U.S. could be traced to a problem in New York, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The logjam has received a lot of attention over the past two years, with mixed results.

The FAA tinkered with takeoff and landing procedures and limited the number of flights allowed at all three airports. Airlines adjusted their schedules. Air traffic controllers settled a labor dispute. The military even opened up restricted airspace off the East Coast.

Improvements have been modest.

On busy days, the lines of planes landing at LaGuardia Airport can still stretch unbroken in the sky for 40 miles, said Dean Iacopelli, an air traffic controller and union representative at the facility that handles approaches to New York.

“All we can do is take them and space them out as close as FAA rules allow,” he said. “It’s not like you can put more aircraft in there. That’s it. We’re just maxed out.”

Getting planes off the ground is no picnic, either, he said.

With a takeoff or landing scheduled every 40 to 50 seconds during peak periods, controllers are sometimes so busy giving instructions that they can’t get the words out quickly enough.

“One guy just can’t talk that fast,” Iacopelli said.

The little relief that has come recently has been due partly to a nationwide reduction in air travel, experts said.

Flights were down 10 percent at LaGuardia and 9 percent at Newark Liberty International in the fiscal year that ended in July. They were down nearly 5 percent at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Fewer flights have meant fewer delays. Through Sept. 20, about 66 percent of the arrivals at LaGuardia have been on time this year, up from an abysmal 58.6 percent during the same period a year ago. Newark’s on-time arrival rate improved from 60.8 percent to 64.1 percent. JFK’s improved from 66.8 percent to 71.4 percent.

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