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Democratic Committee
Recipe for Disaster
Over the past 50 years the subject of
"Air Traffic Control" has been publicly addressed by the occupant of the
Oval Office in the White House exactly twice. The first time in August
1981 by then President Ronald Reagan who summarily dismissed 12,000 striking
PATCO controllers. The second time, nearly 19 years later, by President
William Clinton who last week proposed "new" strategies to help airlines
reduce delays. The only similarity between the two are that both
are a cruel hoax on the American people and it shows that upper levels
of government still haven't a clue as to what air traffic control is all
about. I've watched, over the past 19 years, the increasing proficiency
that FAA Traffic Management officials have acquired in useing non-speak
and smoke-and-mirrors to fool themselves and our customers (you) that there
is a solution to current flight delays. The Air Transport Association,
the alphabet group representing airlines, are fooling themselves, either
purposely or not, into thinking that ATC modernization will be the key
to reducing delays to a more acceptable level. The ATA is in denial
or is intentionally deflecting responsibility away from their members.
In my opinion the latter would be closer to the truth. Other than
poor weather, it is their constituents, airlines, who are primarily responsible
for creating the massive delays seen last year at New York area airports.
To say that it was because of government mismanagement or ineffiency is
pure hogwash. It is the airlines themselves that schedule 18 aircraft
to depart at exactly 8AM at LaGuardia, 16 at exactly 7:30AM at Newark,
not the FAA. Of those 34 aircraft, only 2 are able to make it off
on time, because exactly 8AM and exactly 7:30AM happen only once each day.
Multiply that by the number of airports that use hubbing to cut costs and
it is easy to account for 1200 delayed flights every day. On a more
sinister note, could Continental be stacking the departure deck against
United at Newark, keeping the United flight chronically late thereby discouraging
bookings? Could USAir be trying the same thing to American at LaGuardia?
Competition is intense. Would you do that to your competition if
you could?
The air traffic system
has a finite capacity at any given time given the amount and location of
runways currently available. On any given day, 20%, or 1 in five,
of the world's commercial airline fleet travels through New York area airspace.
A new web site, conference calls, and use of military airspace 60 miles
offshore does not seriously address the issue of delays nor will it address
a predicted 50% increase in air traffic over the next few years.
It's just more smoke-and-mirrors. That seems like a recipe for, at
the very least more delays, at the very worst disaster.
Sincerely,
Barry W. Leach