The Ripple Effect

Recall that I warned about more stories exposing the problems with airport delays. Well, the latest such story has been published by USA Today, and it focuses on JFK Airport.

None of the overall problems should be a surprise. Lack of airspace and NIMBY have prevented changes to the traffic corridors that could open up more airspace and reduce delays. Construction of reinforced taxiways to accomodate the Airbus 380 closing key areas and reducing overall flow in the airport.

There are no simple solutions, even as jetBlue prepares to open a brand new terminal to accomodate more planes at one time but even jetBlue sees the need to limit flights into the airport.

I can recall that Mrs. Lawhawk and I flew out to Salt Lake City on jetBlue from JFK last year. We had to transverse the entire airport to just line up for takeoff and that took nearly a half hour. It was then that we had to queue in a long stream of planes awaiting takeoff. The flight was surely going to be delayed, but for the pilot on board being notified that someone on board needed to get to Salt Lake City because their wife was in labor and expected to give birth at any moment. Within minutes, we were jumped to the front of the line, which appeared to be a dozen planes long, and we were able to arrive on time. Had we not been able to cut the line, we would have been more than an hour late. That experience showed that the flight schedule was padded to take into account the flight delays on the ground. Expect to see more flight schedules padded so as to take into account delays - just so the airlines can claim better on time performance.

The airport simply can't handle more flights, and minor delays snowball into huge problems causing gridlock. The airport has managed to improve vehicle flow through the airport with the construction of the AirTrain, which also links to long term parking, car rental locations, and the Jamaica LIRR station.

The region had a reprieve of 5 years following 9/11 when air travel was significantly down from the prior period. That reprieve is over, and expectations are that traffic delays will continue to rise as there are no solutions in place or expected to make a dent anytime soon.