US airlines have bowed to federal pressure to lower their Chicago O'Hare airport peak-hour arrivals as a temporary step to reduce congestion at the nation's most-delayed hub.
The new arrival rates - 88 an hour between 07:00 and 20:00 local time - will be in place between the beginning of November and the end of April 2005 but could be extended. Arrival rates now are 110 to 132 an hour.
The two dominant carriers at O'Hare, with 86% of its flights between them, will take most of the cuts. United Airlines will cut 20 arrivals while American Airlines will cancel 17 incoming flights, the Transportation Department and the FAA said.
It is their third round of schedule reductions in 2004, after previous peak-hour flight schedules fell by a combined 7.5% under voluntary agreements. But as weather stayed unco-operative, O'Hare delays by early summer were reaching 30% and slowing the national system, the FAA said. American and United had blamed low-cost competitors such as the newly formed Independence Air for adding flights.
Carriers with eight or fewer flights are little affected by the pact, but advocates were not pleased with the deal. Business Travel Coalition chairman Kevin Mitchell said it "locks in the level of competition at O'Hare and locks out new entrants. The government is regulating supply." Ed Faberman, executive director of the Air Carrier Association of America, representing low-fare carriers, said he opposed limits at other airports or extending this one beyond April.
The FAA, which threatened to impose caps if carriers could not agree on a limit, believes these new O'Hare rates could cut airport delays by 20% and national delays by 5% by early next year. FAA administrator Marion Blakey says: "O'Hare no longer will be the place where on-time schedules go to die." But Blakey and the carriers are unanimous that the longer-term answer to delays is more capacity at Chicago. However, expansion at O'Hare and a new airport for the city are years away.
Source: Airline Business
