Agreement to Limit Flights at Newark

Air Safety Week, March 17, 2008

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters used a keynote speak to the FAA Aviation Forecast Conference to announce that airlines serving Newark Liberty Airport have agreed to temporarily cap and spread flights for two years at a level that will allow 30 more flights per day while helping to reduce chronic delays,

The cap, which will apply to both domestic and international flights, will allow an average of 83 flights per hour during peak periods and will go into effect in early May.

"We have an obligation to travelers to do everything in our power to prevent a repeat of the horrors they experienced last summer," Peters said. "Delays in New York are a regional problem, not just a single-airport problem."

"Let me be clear on one other point: We are not requiring service cuts. Airlines will be able to shift their flights to times of the day when Newark has unused capacity. Overall, the caps at Newark allow more operations per day than were offered last summer - just more reasonably spaced," Peters added.

The cabinet member said the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) also would introduce market-based mechanisms at Newark to allow the airport to accommodate growth while helping to reduce congestion and delays. As capacity at Newark grows, DOT will auction slots at the airport, an approach that encourages competition, allows new entrants and responds to customer demand, Peters said.

Peters thanked the carriers for their cooperation in reaching the agreement. Airlines can avoid service cuts by shifting flights to times of the day when the airport has unused capacity, she said. This action follows a limitation on hourly flights at New York's JFK Airport that will go into effect later this month.

"Ideally the problem of congestion would be tackled at the local level....I will sit down with the directors of the country's most congested airports to discuss how we can address the problem without the intervention of the federal government. But if airports and airlines cannot manage congestion at the local level, we will have to step in, because congestion in just a few airports cascades across the continent," Peters warned.

On another subject, Peters announced that the Federal Aviation Administration would move key elements of NextGen - the new satellite-based aviation system designed to enhance efficiency and minimize delays across the nation - from design to delivery this year. "NextGen is crucial to our long-term strategy for keeping up with forecasted growth," Peters has concluded.

She said Florida will begin serving as the test-bed for the new system this summer, with the introduction of NextGen at Daytona Beach and the use of a new descent technique in Miami that saves fuel, and reduces noise and emissions. In addition, ADB-S technology will help increase the capacity of airspace along Florida's Gulf Coast by allowing planes to fly more closely together without compromising safety.

The FAA's forecast maintains that annual U.S. passenger enplanements will soon break the one billion mark. Although commercial aviation continues to grow post 9/11, Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell noted that the growth has slowed somewhat, because of oil prices and the fear of an economic recession.

"The story for 2008 is clear. The fundamentals of the industry -- continued growth, cheap ticket prices -- are vibrant down the road. With that said, in the near term, we're seeing a definite pause in growth. We didn't have one in last year's forecast. But this year, it's pretty clear. We're talking flat growth in operations, and slow growth in passengers. What that means is that our one billion mark slips a year, from 2015 to 2016," said Sturgell.

Regarding NextGen, the FAA boss said "an already congested airspace has got to be able to accommodate that many more operations per year. When you say things like that, the cynics will tell you immediately that the sky is falling. That's not the case, because we can meet the demand if we transform the way we do business.

"NextGen takes us from a ground-based operation into the satellite era, with a system that's much more automated. The congestion, the delays, the inefficiency -- they all add up to why we need to make this move. And now. I'm proud of the fact that the journey to NextGen is already underway. It's coming more into being each day.

"We're ramping things up. We're accelerating NextGen routes -- RNP and RNAV -- into busy areas like Chicago, DFW, D.C. and New York. Required navigation performance and area navigation are capabilities that use an aircraft's onboard technology and GPS to fly more accurate and predictable flight paths. They increase navigation accuracy. They improve safety. And, they improve efficiency. It doesn't get much better than that. In fact, we've increased our production of RNP approaches this year, from 50 to 69.

"Over in the Gulf of Mexico, we're going to add ADS-B coverage so that planes can fly closer together without compromising safety. This ensures more efficiency and capacity.