Colyn,
You can see that only 2% of the traffic at O'Hare is GA. Kinda makes you
wonder why Dailey closed Meigs.
"Resurgence of Unacceptable Levels of Congestion
As a result of the 2000
legislation, the slot restrictions of the HDR lapsed at
O’Hare as of July 1,
2002. The absence of these restrictions allowed airlines
operating at
the airport to add flights, which over time led to a dramatic
increase in airline delays.
These delays reverberated throughout the national
air transportation system.Initially, lifting the HDR had a minimal impact on
delays due to the lingering
effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on airline
passenger traffic. But by 2003, the two air
carriers operating hubs at
O’Hare, American Airlines (“American”) and United Airlines
(“United”), had
added a large number of operations and retimed other flights, resulting
in
congestion during peak hours of the day. From April 2000 through November
2003,
American increased its scheduled operations at O’Hare between the hours
of 12:00 p.m.
and 7:59 p.m. by nearly 10.5 percent. Over the same period,
United increased its
scheduled operations at O’Hare by over 41
percent.
The increases in operations by American and United did not result in
a
corresponding increase in seat capacity. During the peak period, these two
carriers added
375 regional jet operations per day. Overall, American and
United added over 600
regional jet operations per day. At the same time as
they added regional jet operations,
they reduced mainline jet operations. The
result was actually a decrease in seat capacity
by each carrier at O’Hare of
more than 5.5 percent from April 2000 to November 2003
while flights
increased by an average of 150 per day. In November 2003, more than
40
percent of American’s and United’s O’Hare flights were operated with
regional jets,
many to large and medium hubs. The significant increases in
scheduled operations
during this time period resulted in excessive delays and
congestion at O’Hare.
By November 2003, O’Hare had the worst on-time
performance of any major
airport. O’Hare arrivals were on time only 57
percent of the time, well below the FAA
goal of 82 percent. Departures were
little better. They were on time only 67 percent of
the time, well below the
average of 85 percent at other major airports. These delays
averaged about an
hour in duration. Published schedules for February 2004 indicated that
the
problem would be exacerbated by the addition of even more
flights.
Recognizing congestion was again becoming a significant issue,
Congress enacted
legislation that included a mechanism to help reduce delays
and improve the movement
of air traffic at congested airports (49 U.S.C.
41722). That statutory provision authorized
the Secretary of Transportation
(Secretary) to request that scheduled air carriers meet
with the FAA to
discuss flight reductions at severely congested airports to reduce
overscheduling
and flight delays during hours of peak operation, if the
Administrator
determines that it is necessary to convene such a meeting and
the Secretary determines
that the meeting is necessary to meet a serious
transportation need or achieve an
important public benefit.
In early 2004,
the Secretary and the FAA Administrator determined that a
schedule reduction
meeting was necessary to deal with congestion-related delays at
O’Hare.
Before such a meeting could be convened, however, United and American
each
agreed in separate discussions with agency officials to reduce their
scheduled flights
voluntarily. Accordingly, the schedule reduction meeting
was deferred. Instead, the
FAA issued an order implementing the voluntary
agreement of the two air carriers,
Docket FAA-2004-16944-55; 69 FR 5650
(2004). The FAA order required a 5 percent
reduction in the two carriers’
scheduled operations. This reduction was to be effective
between 1:00 p.m.
and 8:00 p.m. for six-months, beginning no later than March 4, 2004.
The FAA
again reviewed O’Hare’s on-time performance in March 2004 in light
of the
ordered schedule reductions... On July 8, 2005, the FAA published in the Federal
Register Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) 105, “Reservation System for
Unscheduled Operations at
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport,” (70 FR
39610). This SFAR limits unscheduled
arrivals [GA] at
the airport to four per hour and provides an allocation
mechanism for operators
to obtain reservations for those operations." FAA
Even the FAA acknowledges that the congestion problem is NOT
GA but the airlines intelligent choices to retire big aircraft and
big aircraft drivers and replace them with more small aircraft.
Jeff