Action on NY Air Congestion Urged

Air Safety Week, June 23, 2008

The Air Transport Association of America (ATA) has told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure about the urgent need to increase capacity and reduce congestion in New York-area airspace.

ATA denounces the Department of Transportation (DOT) congestion pricing and slot auction proposals that would limit capacity.

"Instead of moving forward with capacity enhancements and airspace redesign using every available resource with all deliberate speed, the DOT is pushing congestion pricing and slot auctions - completely unproven textbook experiments that no one in the aviation world has used successfully," said ATA President and CEO James C. May.

"DOT seems intent on leaving a legacy of failed, but extremely costly, experiments that do nothing to reduce congestion and flight delays in New York or anywhere else." ATA is joined by a broad coalition, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), in opposing these DOT proposal.

ATA believes DOT should devote all of the resources necessary right now to implement the New York airspace redesign and related initiatives while working with the Port Authority and others to implement the near-term capacity enhancements identified last year. DOT should also work to open up new airways on a permanent basis and accelerate development and implementation of technologies to bring us to the NextGen air traffic management system.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey strongly opposes the proposal for the federal government to auction the rights to operate flights at Kennedy International, Newark International and LaGuardia airports.

The PANY/NJ believes the auction proposal would harm air travelers at the Port Authority's airports because it would not increase capacity and ultimately would reduce choices for customers, make flying more expensive, and cut service to small cities that otherwise have no flights to New York City.

In testimony before the congressional panel, Port Authority Aviation Director William R. DeCota said an auction plan also does not address the underlying issues of delays and congestion.

"The Administration has chosen to impose an approach that we, as the airport operator, think is not only illegal but also disastrous; that the vast majority of the carriers, including the legacy and low-cost carriers, are opposed to; and that consumers, represented by such groups as the Air Travelers Association and the Business Travelers Coalition, believe will ultimately harm rather than help them," he said.

The government proposal, expected to be final in 60 days after a comment period, calls for airlines at Newark and JFK to get up to 20 slots a day for the 10-year life of the rule. A percentage above the base amount would be auctioned.

At JFK, there are two options that could lead to up to 179 slots of the airport's 1,245 being auctioned over 10 years. For five years, 10 percent of an airline's slots above the 20 slots a day would be auctioned, with the proceeds invested to improve regional capacity and reduce congestion. Alternately, airlines would auction 20 percent above the baseline and keep the proceeds.

At Newark, the government would auction 10 percent of slots above the baseline annually for the first five years and, unlike one JFK option, airlines could bid on their own slots. Over a decade, the auctions would involve 96 out of 1,219 slots.

"We are concerned that the Bush Administration's approach is fundamentally flawed, unworkable, unresponsive to the problem, and disruptive to the airport, to air carriers' schedules, and ultimately, to the traveling public ... Auctions are not the solution," DeCosta added.

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