New Plan Aims to Relieve Air Travel Congestion

MICHAEL GOLDFARB, Federal Aviation Administration: Not much, Jim. I'm afraid it's a band-aid on a much, much larger problem.

I think Jim would agree that we have two major things coming together at absolutely the wrong time right now in this country. We have too much aluminum in the sky, not enough runways on the ground, too much congestion.

And then we have an infrastructure that's falling apart. So the planes in the sky have no place to land. We don't have enough airports, but we also have a workforce that's incredibly demoralized right now. So normally...

JIM LEHRER: Wow.

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: ... normally when you take a delay as a passenger, you're willing to take that delay because safety should never be put at risk. And now we have a situation where the administration, out of some good understanding of the degree of desperation, is trying to do rapid fixes to problems that are long term, and that could affect safety. I'm concerned about that.

JIM LEHRER: Do you share that concern, Mr. May?

JIM MAY, President, Air Transport Association: We always share a concern about safety. I think we have to keep safety first and foremost in our minds.

But I would agree with Michael -- and we've been making speeches about this for 10 or 15 years -- that the real culprit is an aging air traffic control system that needs to be completely revamped. I think Congress needs to help us get to that point, the FAA, the DOT, and others.

And this is a step, I think, in the right direction for New York, because a good part of what the secretary announced today were some operational capacity enhancements to the system. And I think that 77-item list that the DOT has put out there are things that need to be done, but we need to have, even beyond that, a far more comprehensive effort.

JIM LEHRER: Well, we'll get to that in a moment, but let's go through the specifics here.

JIM MAY: Sure.

JIM LEHRER: The restriction that -- there are some detailed restrictions about when the number of flights, particularly at JFK and all of that. How could that affect things in a positive way?

JIM MAY: Well, what they've done on a temporary basis for the next two years is place what are called caps on all three airports. They actually exist at LGA, LaGuardia today. And they're going to put caps on at JFK. And within a week or two, they'll announce caps at Newark.

I think that will limit the number of flights per hour that are going to be departing and arriving from those affected airports. I think that will smooth out, if you will, the traffic -- "de-peaking" it, is the term -- and then the air traffic control adjustments will come into play.

JIM LEHRER: Will it still be the same, roughly the same number of flights, they'll just be spread out better? Is that the deal, Mr. Goldfarb?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Well, it will have a ripple effect. And I think Jim is right that while it might ease departure delays at those airports, it's going to create other problems at airports right around that area, like Philadelphia and the others.

JIM LEHRER: Why? Why would that--

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: The problem is that some of these fixes that they announced today, bringing planes closer on final to Kennedy, using the military routes, the problem is that we just don't have the resources, we don't have the people to provide that level of change right now and to offer off the capacity.

JIM LEHRER: You're talking about people in the air traffic control system?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Yes, yes.

JIM LEHRER: The people that would be required to use this freed-up military air space with more flights, that's what's you're saying?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Right. You know, the military air space creates other problems. It will get you out of New York faster, Jim, but it won't get you to Orlando any quicker.

So, in fact, you're still backed up flying into Orlando. You still have the same amount of traffic nationwide. New York has to be dealt with, but it's a band-aid on a much, much bigger problem.

I think Jim alluded to it. Two issues: Technology is not available to allow the safe ability to put more planes in the air space. And...

JIM LEHRER: But the New York -- you think the New York thing will help a little bit?

JIM MAY: I think it will help. I think both sides of the equation in New York are going to help, both the caps and the capacity enhancements.

And I disagree with Michael. When we had the availability of New York air space during Thanksgiving, those north-south routes along the East Coast did see some improvement.

There's no question we need to be careful of spacing. There's no question that we need to involve the air traffic controllers in this dialogue, in this debate that we're having. And it's a multifaceted problem that requires a suite of solutions.

JIM MAY: What I hope is that we'll have somebody who has real authority to make real decisions to cut across jurisdictional lines...

JIM LEHRER: Moment by moment or in a big way?

JIM MAY: In a big way, to be able to implement some of the badly needed changes that have been held up. As a practical matter, you've got a lot of local citizens that are worried about noise restrictions that are holding up the overall New York air space plan.

JIM LEHRER: But an air czar is not going to be sitting around a table like this and say, "OK, let's move this flight in here," and all of that. This is a big-picture person.

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Right. And how often have big-picture czars worked in any industry in recovery? It scares me to think of an air czar without any air traffic operational knowledge, without any understanding of what you just mentioned, the day to day.

It's all about the day to day. It's all about getting those planes off Runway 41 Left efficiently. To do that, you have to understand the operation.

So a czar, could you have a czar, like a big-picture czar? Jim, I think so. Is it going to make a capacity difference? I think not.

JIM MAY: I think it will, Michael. I disagree with you. I think it's the one suggestion that the secretary made that has support from Congress, the airlines, the Port Authority, and across the board.

We've got to try it. We used it when we had real serious congestion problems in south Florida a couple of years ago. And it made a big difference. I hope that the most congested, most complicated air space in the world, which is New York, it will make the same big difference.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Both of you agreed on one thing here, is that the problem is a lot more than a few fixes that were announced today.

JIM MAY: Correct.

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Well, I'll let Jim answer the air side; I'll answer the ground side. I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

JIM LEHRER: On the ground?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: There's just not enough, what, not enough runways?

MICHAEL GOLDFARB: There's not enough runways. There's not enough controllers. They're leaving in droves. They had a very bad labor agreement. I'm not certain why the administration signed such a bad labor agreement.

They have hundreds of them leaving and retiring before they're really eligible, they have to leave. So we have a shortage of work force. We have no plan to deal with that. We have a huge retirement battle.

We have equipment that the FAA historically has been unable to put in the field to help controllers and to help the airlines do the kinds of things.

JIM LEHRER: And meanwhile, your industry, the airline industry, wants more planes, more flights, wants to expand, right?

JIM MAY: We want to be able to grow, but we need to have a modern, satellite-driven air traffic control system to be able to accommodate that growth. We move 750 million people a year today. That's going to jump to a billion within the next four or five years.

JIM LEHRER: Say that again, 750 million right now?

JIM MAY: Million people a day right now.

JIM LEHRER: It's going to go to a billion?

JIM MAY: A billion.