Union website: Logan prone to 8-to-9 p.m. delays in July

Logan International Airport has made a new top 10 list -- of airports you should avoid flying into on a July night.

A website being launched today , called www.AvoidDelays.com , ranks the 8-to-9 p.m. hour at Logan as one of the 10 worst periods at any big US airport for flight delays this month.

According to data from the US Transportation Department that the site searches, nearly 56 percent of flights scheduled to arrive at Logan between 8 and 9 p.m. last July came in late, and all past data suggest that the time slot is likely to continue to be a major trouble spot.

The site also urges travelers to steer clear of flights landing in the same 8-to-9 p.m. hour this month at Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia in New York, and the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh airports.

The site is being launched as part of a National Air Traffic Controllers Association publicity blitz aimed at pushing the Federal Aviation Administration and Congress to pay for hiring hundreds of new air traffic personnel. The traffic controllers' union contends that a big reason for delays -- along with congestion and bad weather -- is a shortage of control-tower personnel, which forces the system to delay and ground flights to maintain safety.

``We want to help get useful and user-friendly information into the hands of consumers, but ideally, what we want to do is fix the system so you don't have to work around it so much" by trying to schedule flights at less delay-prone times, said Ruth Marlin , executive vice president of the association.

``What we need as a nation is a solution to these problems," she said. ``Increasing controller staffing alleviates some of the stresses on the system. Giving us modern and up-to-date equipment would alleviate some of the stresses on the system."

The FAA estimates it should have 15,800 air traffic controllers on staff nationally, but now has just 14,500, Marlin said -- and ``we agree with the FAA's numbers."

FAA spokesman Geoffrey M. Basye said: ``Given that flight-delay information already is available online, it is clear that this is simply the latest in a series of union tactics aimed at scaring the traveling public and driving a wedge between the agency and its controller workforce."

The AvoidDelays.com site uses data from the FAA's website and US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but presents them in more easily searchable formats, tailored to the 32 busiest US airports.

While the hour beginning at 8 p.m. at Logan gets special attention, the site shows that any time after 5 p.m. at Logan is likely to be tough in July. About 45 percent of all flights scheduled to arrive between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. last July came in late, and over 50 percent between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Because delay patterns are highly seasonal, influenced by thunderstorms and other weather, the site argues that delay data from the same month a year ago, rather than the previous month, is likely to be most helpful in predicting flight delays.

The site also highlights about 90 individual flights that ran late 90 percent or more of the time in July 2005, including an evening Boston-Newark Continental Airlines flight and an evening Atlanta-Boston Delta Air Lines flight. However, in almost all of those cases, including the Continental and Delta runs, the flight numbers have been changed since last year and no longer correspond to current operations.

Danny Levy , a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, said airport officials do all they can to keep flights operating safely and on time, but said: ``Unfortunately, delays -- especially ones due to weather -- tend to have a domino effect on most airports across the Eastern Seaboard and are well beyond our control." On the question of whether year-old data can predict the risk of delays during specific hours, Levy said that approach's success ``is as predictable as the weather in New England."

Overall, Logan is handling about 3 percent fewer flights than it did a year ago, Levy added, ``so all else being equal, delays should be down."

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.