Air-traffic errors in the Chicago area have increased sixfold this year, and planes waiting for parking gates are jeopardizing safety at the city’s two airports, according to data released Thursday and concerns raised by controllers.
Regional controllers handling planes near O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport committed 24 errors this year that resulted in violations of the required minimum spacing between aircraft, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Eight of the errors made by controllers at the FAA facility in Elgin occurred since Oct. 1, corresponding with a surge in air travel that is expected to continue next year.
Four errors were made in 2002, and eight were made in 2001 at the facility. In 2000, before the steep downturn in the airline industry caused by the 9/11 attacks, the FAA recorded 10 errors at the facility.
“Traffic demands are rapidly increasing, and the error rate is symptomatic of the problems. The safety margins over Chicago skies are at the thinnest they have been,” said Ray Gibbons, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at the facility.
Traffic at O’Hare and Midway has bounced back more than at most major U.S. airports, surpassing the passenger loads and flight volumes seen before the terrorist attacks. Recent trends hint that records could be set next year.
The increasing congestion in the skies and on the ground, however, threatens a return to the crippling delays that paralyzed commercial aviation before the attacks.
Airlines are reporting on-time arrival rates of 85 percent or better this year, but airlines pad the amount of time scheduled for flights. Passengers who depart an hour or more behind schedule but arrive at their destination “on time” are beginning to complain again.
After running out of space on taxiways, controllers at Midway routinely line up planes filled with passengers on inactive runways until gates at the terminal are free, said veteran controller Kevin Rojek. He said the situation creates the potential for danger if a pilot makes a wrong turn taxiing, or if an airplane breaking through the clouds were to land on the wrong runway.
“It’s harder and harder each day to get planes safely in and out of the airport,” said Rojek, president of the controllers union at Midway.
In what has become an almost daily occurrence, flights to O’Hare were delayed Thursday. It wasn’t due to weather problems at other airports–O’Hare simply could not accommodate the number of arriving flights,according to an FAA airport report.
At 6 p.m. Wednesday at O’Hare, more than 50 aircraft were parked on holding pads waiting for other aircraft to board passengers and leave gates, officials said.
“Traffic is skyrocketing, and we are back to the craziness of pre-Sept. 11,” said Craig Burzych, the controllers union president at O’Hare. “Controllers are making mistakes because they are constantly pounding airplanes in and out. There is no time to catch up.”
Passenger traffic is up 5 percent at O’Hare and 9 percent at Midway this year compared with last year, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.
O’Hare has more than 2,700 takeoffs and landings daily, up from about 2,500 a day before 9/11, the Aviation Department said. Airlines serving O’Hare added 150 flights a day in November and 150 more are planned for January, officials said.
“We always knew traffic would recover,” said Chicago aviation spokeswoman Monique Bond. “The consolidation of American Airlines’ St. Louis hub has brought more flights to O’Hare, and the recovery of United Airlines from bankruptcy is adding to the numbers.”
On the Southwest Side, about 1,000 planes arrive and depart from Midway each day, compared with 850 flights before the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.
One reason for the controller error increase may be that the airlines are concentrating more flights into certain times of day, said FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro. He said a definitive explanation has not been established.
“We are beginning to see that we are losing our peaks and valleys [in the flow of arrivals and departures]. It’s becoming all peaks,” Molinaro said.
But he said safety is being maintained.
“The standards for separating aircraft are very conservative. Even when the standards are compromised, we are very confident that safety is not compromised,” he said.
Gibbons said reasons for the higher error rate include a more complicated mix of large jetliners, small regional jets and corporate planes flying at different speeds.
