For the first time in 20 years, the federal government will call all U.S. airlines to an urgent meeting next week aimed at reducing flight overscheduling at O’Hare International Airport that has caused record delays across the nation.
The unusual scheduling conference announced Wednesday by U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta will take place Wednesday, with a goal of cutting O’Hare flights starting in October for a six-month trial period.
The number of flights targeted for reduction during peak travel hours has not been established. The Federal Aviation Administration will scrutinize flight schedules and announce the desired level Monday, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said.
Mineta invoked new authority granted in November that allows him to call the meeting without violating anti-trust rules. Airlines normally are prohibited from discussing scheduling and marketing plans with each other because it could lead to collusion in ticket prices.
“We have an untenable problem at O’Hare,” Blakey said in an interview at agency headquarters.
She said the scheduling changes will be only a short-term solution but are necessary until new runways are built at O’Hare.
O’Hare has the worst on-time performance in the nation. Chicago delays are causing thousands of missed connections each day at O’Hare and at 35 of the largest airports nationwide.
Record delays
O’Hare, which handles more flights than any other U.S. airport, set a record for delays in May with 14,500 late flights. Delays improved slightly in June, but still only 69 percent of flights arrived on time, data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics show.
On a perfect blue-sky day, the FAA rates O’Hare as able to safely accommodate 100 arrivals an hour and a similar number of departures. But the airlines consistently schedule up to 120 arrivals an hour during peak periods, regardless of weather conditions.
Schedules that the airlines set for August amount to 170 flights a day above daily levels in August 2003, the FAA said. O’Hare is often handling more than 2,900 flights a day this summer, up from about 2,500 daily flights in 2000.
The new cuts will coincide with the Oct. 31 expiration of separate agreements between the FAA and O’Hare’s biggest operators, American Airlines and United Airlines. At the FAA’s request, the two carriers voluntarily cut flights by 5 percent in March during peak afternoon and evening hours, and another 2.5 percent in June.
But other carriers, most notably the low-cost airline Independence Air, added flights this summer to O’Hare, despite FAA protests and requests for cuts, negating much of the gains from the American and United pullbacks.
The government intervention, seen by some as interference in an airline industry that Congress deregulated in 1978, falls short of a return to the mandatory flight caps on O’Hare that Mayor Richard Daley said last week he feared the FAA was poised to impose.
Asked about the FAA plan, Daley said: “They’re looking at, of course, the busy season. … So we’re going to have a discussion about what they want to do.”
Mandatory flight caps still could be slapped on later if the current strategy fails, Blakey said.
Supporters of free-market solutions to the airline industry’s problems were quick to predict that the schedule-reduction conference would fail. Critics of the plan said the fiercely competitive airlines would balk, even under mounting federal pressure, at downsizing their Chicago operations.
The most recent flight-reduction talks were held in 1984. They resulted in a temporary schedule reshuffling at O’Hare and other busy airports that yielded better on-time performance. Delays dropped nationally but climbed again when the schedule controls ended a short time later.
Under the FAA’s funding reauthorization passed by Congress in November, the transportation secretary was given the authority to summon airlines into meetings to try to work out capacity issues. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called in April for such scheduling meetings.
Some experts questioned whether giving the power to the transportation secretary was proper, and they suggested letting the marketplace shake out supply-and-demand issues.
“I can’t see how this is going to work. The airlines will be called to the table and then what will happen?” asked Jay Franke, a former Chicago aviation commissioner.
Franke labeled the talks “a terrible process” because the FAA negotiations with airlines will bring political pressures on airlines for changes based on the wish lists of other airports “instead of what should be marketplace decisions in Chicago.”
U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for instance, threatened to block the lifting of flight caps at O’Hare several years ago unless Phoenix-based America West Airlines was granted access to the airport. McCain got his way.
Return to flight cap feared
Franke said the flight scheduling talks might foreshadow a return to capping flight slots the FAA will allow at O’Hare.
“The airlines haven’t put forth a very good alternative proposal other than to build 60 more runways at O’Hare,” said Franke, who is assistant director of the Transportation Center at Northwestern University.
Government-imposed remedies have been tried before to ease gridlock at O’Hare and other congested airports.
A high-density rule was imposed in 1968 that limited the number of takeoff and landing slots per hour at O’Hare, New York’s LaGuardia and Kennedy International Airports and at Washington National Airport. The slot controls were supposed to be in place for six months, but Congress kept them for more than 30 years, finally phasing the limits out in 2002.
The number of flights targeted for reduction in the current plan in peak travel hours is still being studied. The FAA and a consultant will examine each 15-minute interval between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. daily at O’Hare before announcing new desired levels, FAA officials said.
Roundtable discussion
The airlines will be brought together for a roundtable discussion with FAA officials on the specific flight reduction targets. Blakey and her staff will then lead private meetings with each airline in an attempt to negotiate cuts.
American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said short-term solutions are needed, “but they must be fair and equitable to all carriers.”
Spokesman Jeff Green said United Airlines didn’t know what the FAA would seek from individual airlines, but he reiterated that United and American have already made cuts to mitigate O’Hare congestion.
Chicago Aviation Commissioner John Roberson said the key to the FAA-led talks is bringing all the airlines together to work out a solution.
“Some airlines have ratcheted up operations. We need to get everybody at the table to understand that congestion at O’Hare is not good for everybody and that all of them need to share the pain,” said Roberson, who was in Washington for a briefing on the plan by FAA officials.
