Flight Reduction Agreement To Remain In Place An Additional Six Months

A voluntary airline agreement to reduce flight delays at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport would be extended another six months, through the end of October, under a proposal announced by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta.  The current voluntary agreement with airlines operating into and out of O'Hare was set to expire April 30.

"The voluntary flight reductions have helped ease the pressure on travelers and given all of us some breathing room while we work toward a longer term solution to the capacity challenges at O'Hare," said Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta.

The Secretary cited recent improvements at O'Hare as the reason behind extending the scheduling agreement until the end of October. Secretary Mineta noted, for example, that since last November 1, 2004, average arrival delay minutes at O'Hare dropped 21 percent and the overall arrival on-time performance rose by an average of nearly 11 percent.

As delays mounted last year at O'Hare, Mineta convened a meeting between the FAA and the U.S. and Canadian airlines serving the airport. The result was a voluntary agreement by each airline to limit arriving flights at O'Hare during peak hours at the airport.  The agreement's benefits were immediate, Mineta said.  Less than a month after the agreement took effect last November, on-time arrivals improved by nearly 20 percent while the average arrival delay dropped by over 40 percent as compared to November 2003.  Overall on-time performance improved again in December by 8 percent and in January by 6 percent, Mineta added.

The order signed yesterday by FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey proposes to keep the basic elements of the voluntary agreement in place and also seeks comment on whether and how the agency should allocate unused capacity assigned to air carriers in the original order.

"Cooperation works," said Blakey.  "Our goal is to get the passenger there on time, and that's what the order supports.  The original schedules called for more planes than the airport could handle. The order reflecting the carriers' agreement puts an end to a practice that made delays and missed connections an unavoidable certainty.  By proposing to extend this agreement, we would continue to give passengers a fighting chance to arrive on time."

Under the order's proposed extension, domestic airlines serving O'Hare would continue to be limited to 88 scheduled arrivals per hour between 0700 and 0800  Also, airlines would be required to contact the FAA for approval prior to rescheduling flights to ensure potential scheduling moves do not have a detrimental effect on airport efficiency. To preserve airport access and competition, the order would allow new entrants and those carriers already serving O'Hare with fewer than eight scheduled arrivals to add no more than one arrival from 1200 to 2100. All additions would be subject to prior approval by the FAA and handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

The extension is expected to serve as an interim measure until the agency proposes more formal rulemaking to address congestion-related delays at the airport.

FMI: www.dot.gov