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Air Opened For Holiday Flights

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The Associated Press

Published: November 19, 2008

WASHINGTON - The government is opening some military airspace to ease airline congestion over Thanksgiving and Christmas, although the effort is likely to have only limited results, and if the weather's bad, all bets are off.

President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that he's expanding the Thanksgiving express lanes this year to include military air corridors in the Midwest, the Southwest and the West Coast. That's in addition to the East Coast corridors, which were also freed up for holiday traffic last year.

It made very little difference for travelers out of Tampa last year, and good weather may have had more to do with fewer delays, industry officials said in 2007.

Approximately 24 million passengers are expected to fly during the 12 days around the Thanksgiving holiday this year, said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, which represents the airline industry. That's about 10 percent fewer than last year, but airlines also have removed about 10 percent of their capacity from the system. Castelveter said airplanes will be about 90 percent full at peak travel times and will be 100 percent full in key markets.

Making highways in the sky that are normally restricted to the military open to commercial airliners may get planes from one airport to another faster, but they'll still have to contend with bottlenecks at busier airports when they arrive.

Doug Church, a spokesman for the air traffic controllers union, said one result of airplanes arriving faster could be more planes circling busy airports and running low on fuel.

"Our point is that they don't have a plan to get them on the ground any faster," Church said. "This plan does nothing to relieve the congestion at the airports that are the traditional hotspots."

Bush also announced other steps to ease holiday air travel. He said his administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration and the airlines are working to increase staffing to speed check-ins and boarding.

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