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Passenger Flights To Receive Pass Again

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By TED JACKOVICS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 27, 2007

TAMPA - Federal officials plan to free up military airspace to ease Christmas holiday travel as it did for Thanksgiving. Striking a deal with the weatherman, however, may actually work better.

Until Monday, when stormy weather and low visibility created lengthy delays for flights serving New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Atlanta - including those to and from Tampa International Airport - the nation's air traffic control system generally kept pace with holiday traffic demands, aviation officials said.

Good weather throughout most of the nation was the key to favorable holiday air travel, they agreed. It was more effective than any other factor, including President Bush's initiative to add commercial air lanes through military areas, they said.

"Using the military airspace helped with the volume of traffic up and down the East Coast," said Kathleen Bergen, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman in Atlanta. "Use of the military airspace over the Thanksgiving holiday went very smoothly, from both the government's and the airlines' perspective.

"Good weather, of course, played an important role in keeping the system running smoothly."

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a Washington labor group that represents FAA air traffic controllers, said controllers across the country reported a "normal Thanksgiving week."

"Regarding the highly touted 'military express lanes,' we did not notice much effect at all," spokesman Doug Church said. "We knew when it was announced it was mostly a public relations tactic."

Church said there were 2,442 flight delays on Sunday compared with 2,140 delays for the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2006, although there likely were more flights this year. The Department of Transportation defines a delay as flights more than 15 minutes behind schedule.

Church said controllers reported that southbound departures from Boston were spaced at 40-mile intervals rather than 30 miles so southbound lanes in the military airspace would not be saturated when New York traffic attempted to get into the flow.

"The FAA ended up creating more delays for others in an attempt to lessen delays from New York," he said.

The FAA reported that 106 flights went through unused military training airspace on Wednesday and Thursday and about 10 an hour used military airspace Sunday. Volume was light on Friday and Saturday and numbers were not recorded.

"Civilian use of military airspace is not new," Bergen said. "What was different this year is that we reached an agreement with the Department of Defense ahead of time to make sure that the airlines were aware of the additional airspace so they could plan for its use."

Operations at Tampa International Airport went smoothly over Thanksgiving, spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said.

"While we do not have all the numbers yet, parking numbers were down from last year," Geoghagan said. "I think passengers took advice and had someone drop them off or took alternative transportation."

The number of checked bags on departing flights from Tampa on Sunday, the airport's busiest day, declined 11.7 percent to 28,863, compared with the same day a year ago.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7817.

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