Citing a continuing shortage of air traffic controllers, airlines serving the New York area have asked the Federal Aviation Administration for another year of ‘slot waivers,’ extending the special waivers through October of next year.
The waivers, which allow airlines to fly fewer flights than they have ‘slots,’ or rights to land and take off, have been in place almost continuously since the 2020 beginning of the pandemic, although they originally had a different purpose.
The New York area airports and Washington Reagan operate under slot rules because they have limited capacity; each slot is good for one take-off or one landing, and the FAA’s rules require that they be used or forfeited to other airlines.
In 2020, when there was very little air traffic, FAA allowed airlines to reduce flights to match without losing them. The alternative would have been flying hundreds of wasteful ‘ghost flights’ without passengers.
Now that air traffic has come roaring back, the shortage of controllers in the New York region is the issue; because of short-staffing, fewer flights at a time can be handled and delays can pile up. To avoid that, FAA allowed the slot waivers to continue, allowing the airlines to voluntarily trim schedules and fly some routes with larger planes to avoid losing seats.
