Airspace where there's no room

NEW YORK - Simple math explains why New York is the nation's worst air-travel bottleneck. Almost every day, more planes are jockeying for space in the sky than the beleaguered air traffic control system can handle.

Finding a solution, though, has tied the aviation industry in knots: Schedule fewer flights? Or find safe ways to get more jets in the air? A federal task force of airline executives, government officials, and aviation groups has been discussing both approaches.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters convened the group in September and gave it a warning: Find a fix for chronic delays at John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty International airports, or be prepared to face a federal order reducing the number of flights allowed.

The talks, led by the Federal Aviation Administration, have been closed to the public, but participants report a primary topic will be "congestion pricing," a scheme to make airlines think twice about scheduling flights during the busiest times of the day by charging them more.

Supporters of the idea say the extra cost of flying in prime time might lead airlines to shift some flights to less busy periods, and leave rush hour to the biggest jets with the most passengers.

Travelers might opt for off-peak hours too, if tickets for coveted early evening flights got more expensive. But limits on the number of planes flying at hours popular for business travelers could hurt the region's economy.

Congestion pricing faces strong opposition from airlines, who say it will raise costs, discourage airlines from serving smaller cities, and make it harder for passengers to fly when they want.

R. John Hansman, director of the International Center for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said congestion pricing could have benefits but would be tough to implement. The challenge, he said, "is that landing spots in New York are so valuable, it is hard to have a price high enough that would change the airlines' behavior."

Many of JFK's international flights, he said, also can't simply be shifted to another part of the day because they need to leave at certain hours so they don't arrive at their destinations in the dead of night.

Some airline officials say the solution is to make better use of New York's inefficient, convoluted airspace. For decades, jetliners over the Eastern Seaboard have been directed to use a small number of old flight paths, some laid out when pilots navigated by signal fires. Those routes jam up quickly on most days, and delays can ripple throughout the country when one or more of the air highways is blocked by a thunderstorm.

And air traffic controllers say they are stretched to the limit in command centers that are understaffed.

Gary Edwards, director of flight control at Delta Air Lines Inc., said those problems routinely keep JFK from operating at anywhere close to its capacity.

With all four of its runways in use, the airport is supposed to be able to handle 100 aircraft movements per hour. On most days, it handles about 68. The situation is similar in Newark.

Delta has tried to ease the problems by regularly asking to fly in less congested corridors, including those that take planes 60 or 70 miles out of their way just to avoid New York.

But more often than not, Edwards said, the planes are instructed to stick with traditional flight headings by overworked air traffic controllers who don't want aircraft moving through their sectors on unfamiliar routes.

"It's a difficult pill for us to swallow," he said.

"The airspace definitely needs to be redesigned."