The delight travelers often feel after finding cheap fares, whether cheap airplane tickets or cheap vacation packages, for travel into or out of New York Citys surrounding airports is often diminished by long flight delays experienced once at the airport.
The worst flight delays in the nation occur in New York because of how close the three nearby airports (JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty) are located and their high volume of flight operations. The problem is exasperated by the airports capacity constraints.
Between 1999 and 2008 the amount of flights in the New York area went up by 8 percent to 612,000 flights. This increase is the equivalent of adding a midsize airport, yet none of the three NYC airports added a single new runway.
To reduce delays the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not allowed airlines to schedule more than 83 flights per hour at JFK and Newark and 81 at LaGuardia. These caps have not been effective because, according to a report issued by the Transportation Departments Office of the Inspector General, the FAA failed to account for bad weather conditions and didnt impose a target for delay reduction. The report noted that delays were made worse because the FAA allowed airlines to exceed FAA established times during certain periods of the day.
The elimination of flight caps was not recommended but the report did call for flight restrictions to be re-examined and changed based on more realistic operating conditions and airlines schedules. Airlines are against government mandated flight restrictions.
Although it is widely acknowledged that New York airport delays have nationwide impact, the report admitted The extent and nature of their impact are largely unknown.
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