Chicago O'Hare

[unmanned transport]

Currently, ORD handles between 78 and 101 arrivals per hr. on its seven runways.

FAA wants to reduce the number of hourly operations to below 90, capped at 22 in any 15-min. stretch between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time.

[FormerFlyer]

What's the point of them wanting to do that then?

cheers ;)

FF

[maxalt]

FF, it was in the news big time in the States last week. The FAA have identified congestion in ORD as the bottleneck that causes major delays throughout the US. They've demanded...sorry...requested the airlines to reduce their schedules to relieve the problem. I'm all for that!

Why don't the FAA introduce a Slot system. Its such a ridiculous arrangement at present. Just wastes expensive fuel taxiing around airports for hours on end. :ugh:

[Luv 744s]

The problem is that the government deregulated commercial aviation several decades ago... so while they do retain control on some aspects, they may not (yet?) be legally permitted to set slots for KORD without new legislation being passed.

Hence, the meeting was purely voluntary and in my personal opinion, a bit of a waste of time.

The laissez-faire model of commerce essentially demands that 'the marketplace shall respond'.

To that end, the commercial airlines are loading up slots and gates as much as they can.

It would be in their general best interests to have a smooth and efficient overall experience, but yet, they don't want to give up hard-fought or hard-earned gates or slots since it would just be yielding market share to a competitor.

So if we had the government step in... the various airlines would scream foul, big time, because then there's the question of how do you fairly reduce slot allocations in a manner satisfying to all?

But ultimately, I'm in favour of slot restrictions to set an upper bound of what can indeed be handled most of the time (the 82% on-time percentage the FAA wants sounds reasonable to me).

There's difficult questions "between here" and "there" -- such as persuading the legislative body (the U.S. Congress) to pass additional legislation enabling the FAA to impose slots restrictions, as well as coming up with a mutually acceptable scheme for imposing a reduction in slots amongst the various airlines.

So, right now, the FAA believes all it can do is to request the airlines cut back and raise awareness of the issue so that the legislative body might be favourable upon the idea of imposing legislation to control this.

This, however, runs contrary to the marketplace-decides laissez-faire approach of the current government administration. So... it's not clear right now what the government wants to do and what they're willing to do, and the airlines are loathe to willingly reduce slots on general competitive principles...

So, essentially, they're in a bit of a pickle as to how to best handle this.

[dallas dude]

Maxalt,

ORD was formerly a slot airport until John McCain (among others) lobbied on behalf of the low cost folks that the slot system (the "portfolio" of mainline carriers) unfairly disadvantaged the customer trying to fly for tuppence ha'penny. Result...grid lock (but cheap fares).

Slots were lifted and LGA and ORD, to name a few, became parking lots at certain times of the day. As you may be aware, ORD's layout also complicates departures/arrivals when the wind blows from certain directions.

Not surprisingly, Johnnie Mac has not been heard from lately in this area-no doubt he's probably busy talking up the next issue, to increase retirement above age 60.

Also to be fair, the major airlines have introduced RJ's on many routes with the result that two groups of fifty people takes up more "room" than one group of one hundred. The mantra amongst many airlines has been frequency of service, ie leave when the business folks want to every 45 minutes or so, rather than go in a larger airplane every ninety mins (simplified but you get the pic).

One last issue is that the FAA considered reduced spacing on final. I believe ATC/airlines are pushing back on this as a study revealed an increase of only four or five arrivals creating extra ATC work and clogged taxiways (as there is nowhere to park the additional volume-it's bad enough as it is!).

The simplest "cure" is to charge much higher landing fees for RJ's. Airlines would be more likely to use their larger equipment into ORD and have one mainline airplane carry two RJ's worth at peak times.

dd

[123 O'Leary]

Why not get more use of Midway, and Palwaukee - both could take more Commuter traffic and somewhat ease the burden at ORD?

[Huck]

Better yet, run commuters into Meigs on the water like the good old days! Oh wait, I forgot, it's now going to be a lakeside park - good - didn't have enough of those....

[unmanned transport]

What is the # of arrivals/hour at LHR?

[Ignition Override]

How about this?

Regarding O'Hare, the FAA supposedly told both United and American to reduce their flight per day, but somehow they allowed two of the low cost airlines to increase flights.

If true, it is simply a bias against mainline carriers, using a subtle method to regulate flights, but without an honest up-front policy.

Don't forget, certain DOT and FAA officials are always political appointees...

[MarkD]

Ignition Override

I thought political appointees usually protected incumbents, not upstarts? :confused:

What incentive would the FAA/DOT have to put UA/AA out of business?

[con-pilot]

About three years ago I was at the NBAA (National Business Aircraft Association) conference and in a meeting with the FAA about the future of airspace usage a spokesman for the FAA took the podium and announced that all aircraft operating above FL280 where going to have be RVSM equipped and certified by January, 2005. He pounded the top of podium to make his point and then stated “We (the FAA) are sick and tired of you operators dragging you feet to do these modifications, you guys are just like the airlines winning about how much money this cost and the downtime etc, etc.”

The poor foolish man asked if there were any questions.

Well, I got and asked a simple question. Why? We do not need RVSM in the United States airspace; we gots lots of airspace, what we need are runways. I then asked if RVSM would eliminate holding at DFW, ORD, ALT, STL and busy airports on days when the weather was good.

Well of course it won’t and now we have proof with ORD.

Waste of time and money.