The Federal Aviation Administration’s summer plan to reduce congestion and delays at New York area airports has apparently paid off, with 6% fewer flights carrying 2% more passengers as airlines use larger planes to keep capacity while reducing flights. The plan was needed because of air controller shortages.
FAA says it’s been successful enough that it will now be extended to October 28, the end of the summer flying season. The program is in effect at the three New York City zone airports (JFK, LaGuardia and Newark) as well as Washington Reagan, which shares many flights with New York.
Washington, JFK and LaGuardia are ‘slot-controlled,’ meaning that a finite number of operations are allowed, and airlines can lose slots if they do not use them at least 80% of the time. Newark is under a different but similar control. The FAA summer plan cut the airlines slack to skip 10% of their required slots for now without jeopardizing their future use of them.
