Flight Delay Solutions Elusive, Costly

TAMPA - Passengers bound from Tampa International Airport to New York on American Airlines Flight 1282 Sunday night were still waiting to leave the terminal in Tampa hours after they were scheduled to land at LaGuardia Airport in New York.

The problem: The airline had to find and assign a substitute pilot for one who had exceeded regulated flight hours.

It's a situation that's becoming all too common. Air traffic control delays, which the Federal Aviation Administration blames in part on airlines scheduling too many flights at peak departure and arrival times, bedevil airlines and passengers alike.

Clearly, 2007 has become a year of frustration, with reports of delayed flights, missed connections, lost baggage and continued long waits onboard aircraft waiting to take off.

In July, passengers filed 1,717 complaints about airline service with the U.S. Department of Transportation, 56.9 percent more than were filed the previous month and twice as many as were filed in July 2006.

'Air travel when things are going well is the best thing in the world,' said Louis Miller, director of Tampa International Airport. 'You can travel 5,000 miles and it's terrific.

'But when there's a hiccup like a major thunderstorm, it can become a disaster to passengers, who can sit on a ramp for two hours or get delayed overnight,' Miller said.

'That's what the customers notice, those kinds of problems.'

It's All About Money

Interviews with industry officials and others show that nearly all of the recent problems seemingly boil down to a single factor: money.

'The major driver for the apparent discontent with air travel is economics,' said Daniel Petree, dean of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's College of Business at the Daytona Beach campus.

'Having said that, the difficulty is that the economic drivers run in different and opposite directions for different stakeholders.'

Among current conflicts:

•Airlines have aggressively urged Congress to modernize air traffic control systems as delays gain public attention. Airlines have challenged elected officials to put more of the financial burden of air traffic control operations on general and corporate aviation, whose interests have used powerful lobbies in opposition.

•Airlines and the FAA seek a multibillion-dollar, next-generation air traffic control system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast that relies on Global Positioning System concepts rather than conventional radar. However, airlines must purchase ADS-B equipment that costs more than a half-million dollars for each aircraft, so airline executives must seek ways to compensate in formulating their budgets.

•Airport officials want the reauthorization of the FAA's funding plan that Congress must resolve by Sept. 30. That would allow airports to increase Passenger Facility Charges from $4.50 to $7 per passenger flight segment in order to finance airport improvements. The same airlines that want more federal funding for improved air traffic control oppose an increase in the PFC, concerned about the effect on ticket prices.

Scheduling Practices Faulted

Marion Blakey, who completed a five-year term as director of the Federal Aviation Administration this week, said airlines must address their scheduling practices. Flights at popular departure times, such as the early morning and late afternoon, attract business travelers but can create runway, takeoff and approach bottlenecks that weather problems compound. Airlines with an eye on profit appear to be reluctant to make significant schedule changes.

There is no magic solution to any of the conflicts, Petree said.

'It will require the stakeholders to think differently about the nature of the problem and the nature of the solution,' Petree said

For example, an easy solution is to get the flying public to pay more for tickets, which is fine for the airlines but not the public.

'Everyone is going to have to think about what is good for the aviation system as a whole and not just what is best for them,' he said.

That's the approach Blakey appeared to suggest with her focus on getting airlines to reconsider their peak-hour schedules, under the threat of the government handling it.

'It always starts with money,' said Noah Lagos, director of the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. 'It becomes a matter of 'Show me the money to fix the problems.''

Both Lagos and Tampa International's Miller fare better with flight delays than most of their national counterparts. Most of the Pinellas airport's commercial flights serve small U.S. domestic markets whose airports usually are not subject to air traffic control 'holds.'

Tampa International is far busier but generally ranks among the top five nationally in on-time performance, largely because it is not a hub airport with myriad connecting flights such as those at airports in Chicago and Atlanta.

'In principle, the role to create solutions is for strong government, but we are not in a period for that, so it's probably going to take a philosophical change to get governments more active,' Petree said. 'We have the FAA and the Department of Transportation, and at least in theory they should be empowered.'