The Traffic Nightmare at JFK Airport

Airlines are finally realizing that they've got to do something to improve the on-time performance at JFK airport, so they've been meeting with officials to try and work something out that doesn't involve government intervention like congestion pricing, which would increase the costs of flying into the airport.

The Transportation Department is under orders from the White House to try and ease congestion in the overcrowded New York airspace, the busiest in the world. Delays at JFK, nearby LaGuardia and Newark airport in New Jersey impact flights across the country.

"Our first choice is to find market-based incentives to fix delays so we can preserve passenger choice, but we will consider imposing scheduling restrictions as one option to avoid a repeat of this summer's delays," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.

Airlines overall increased scheduled operations at JFK by 41 percent between March 2006 and August 2007, government figures show. There were 11,000 departures in August alone and authorities say international flights contribute to the problem. According to IATA, overseas carriers account for about a third of all JFK flights.

The bulk of the increase can be attributed to one airline; JetBlue, which makes JFK its home port. Delta has also increased its operations at the airport.

However, it is not simply the overall numbers that make for a problem - it's when those flights are all scheduled to depart and arrive. There are several windows in which there are simply too many planes and not enough space for them on the ground or in the air.

Generally, the biggest problems come during the morning and evening rush, and that also coincides with international arrivals and departures, which are often overnight flights.

Spreading out flights across the day may not be feasible because that's not when people want to fly, so while there may be capacity to fly midday, there simply isn't a demand for it.

That's why there are people pushing for congestion pricing to alter customer behavior - figuring that if they tax those high traffic times, people will shift to less expensive times. I suspect that all it will do is hit the bottom line of the airlines who teeter on a precarious bottom line.