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Air Plan To Ease Delays?

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By TED JACKOVICS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 16, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday proposed that airlines be allowed to fly through unused military airspace during holiday travel periods to ease congestion and delays, in particular on East Coast routes serving Florida.

The White House also proposed longer-term commercial aviation measures, including new Department of Transportation regulations to ensure travelers are treated fairly when they encounter delays or are stranded in airliners.

Those measures planned for the summer of 2008 include doubling the compensation passengers receive when forced off unbooked flights to a minimum of $800 for waits of more than two hours. Airlines also would be required to provide better data on the sources of flight delays.

Congress would be required to approve the proposals, including the short-term plan for what the White House called "Thanksgiving Express Lanes."

The newly available airspace over water off the East Coast will help the most congested regions from Maine to Florida for nearly five full days surrounding the holiday, the White House said in a fact sheet released Thursday, after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters met with Bush and Federal Aviation Administration acting administrator Bobby Sturgell.

A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Washington, however, said the plan to use military airspace will have "no real effect whatsoever."

"It's PR spin, telling the public what they want to hear," said Doug Church, director of communications for NATCA. "This is because there are 7.5 percent fewer veteran, fully trained controllers onboard nationwide this holiday season, handling 4 percent more traffic."

Church said the FAA tried the same notion of increasing airspace two years ago and it didn't work.

"Clearly, airspace is not the problem," Church said. "Staffing is the problem, in addition to limited ground capacity at major airports like JFK in New York. You only have so many gates and so many runways."

An FAA spokeswoman in Atlanta said civilian aircraft can fly through military airspace including warning areas as long as the areas are not "hot," meaning in use for military training and exercises.

"Preparation for holiday travel will not make delays go away," spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. "We are making sure we are doing everything possible to handle the holiday traffic and to mitigate holiday delays."

The Department of Defense and the FAA are working together to open unused military airspace to commercial flights, Bergen said. This will increase airspace capacity and help reduce delays caused by weather and holiday congestion.

"This is a 'common sense' approach to keeping the air travel system running at full capacity," she said.

"Also, we're ensuring our facilities are well-staffed, halting nonessential maintenance at FAA facilities to focus resources on managing air traffic, and providing real-time passenger information, including delay reports, on the FAA Web site: fly.faa.gov."

The FAA said it will provide increased efficiency through traffic management strategies such as rerouting, using technology to fill unused airspace and using more precise routes for takeoffs and landings through increased use of navigation performance tools.

President Bush said the problems of holiday air delays are "clear to anybody who's been traveling. Airports are very crowded. Travelers are being stranded and flights are delayed, sometimes with a full load of passengers sitting on the runway for hours.

"These failures carry some real costs for the country, not just in the inconvenience they cause but in the business they obstruct and the family gatherings they cause people to miss," the president said. "We can do better."

Bush said today's air travel was run under a system "designed during World War II."

"It's time for Congress to modernize the FAA," he said.

Peters said rules are being proposed to require airlines to respond to customer complaints within 30 days, and to set up an audit of their consumer complaint process to ensure they are being responsive.

The proposed rules also would require carriers to adopt legally binding contingency plans for tarmac delays, including guarantees of adequate food, water, lavatory facilities and medical attention.

"Nobody looks forward to having their flight delayed or canceled, but these rules will ease the uncertainty, it will smooth inconveniences and it will give travelers due compensation for their troubles," Peters said.

"Our ultimate goal is to eliminate the delays in the first place...and we have zeroed in on a major choke point: the New York region."

Peters said the Transportation Department would report back to President Bush on proposed solutions by year's end.

Information from The New York Times was used in this report. Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817 and tjackovics@

tampatrib.com.

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