Aviation: Less Traffic in the Triangle

NBC’s Johnny Carson last week told of the lady who went into labor at about the same time the airplane she was on went into a holding pattern over New York. Cracked Carson: “She wasn’t even pregnant when she got on.” Flying through the Washington-Chicago-New York area known as the Golden Triangle has not yet reached that extreme. Still, delays have become so bad that the Federal Aviation Administration last week proposed limits on traffic at major airports in the triangle to make air travel more manageable. The rules are meant to cut down on air and ground holds, which this summer have caused thousands of passengers to arrive at destinations hours late.

The FAA plan establishes a ration system for arrivals and departures per hour at airports and allots the bulk of such operations to scheduled commercial flights. At New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where the pressure has been greatest, the FAA intends to allow a fixed number of 80 landings and takeoffs an hour. The allocation is based on instrument conditions; if the weather is suitable and visual-landing regulations prevail, more than the 80 will be permitted. Priority will be given to commercial airlines, with a small number of reservations split between air taxis and private airplanes. At Kennedy, moreover, private planes will be banned between the peak hours of 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., when New York’s biggest airport has been handling as many as 128 landings and take-offs an hour.

The new rules will not take effect until private and commercial flyers have had a chance to comment on them at public hearings in Washington. If preliminary reactions last week are any clue, some comments will be angry. Private flyers, in particular, are incensed by the fact that the FAA intends to bar planes from the Golden Triangle pattern in bad weather unless they have a second pilot, can maintain an airspeed of 172 m.p.h. and carry electronic equipment to acknowledge radar signals of FAA controllers.

Lost Appeal. The commercial lines are also upset. The new limits will mean that some scheduled flights will have to cancel temporarily—and no airline is anxious to cut service. Some hard bargaining will have to take place since the FAA order will force the airlines to make schedule reductions of some sort, like it or not. Moreover, since every landing and takeoff has to be reserved in advance, the FAA rules may cut into Eastern Air Lines’ popular Washington-New York shuttle service. It accommodated 3.3 million passengers last year, on the premise that if scheduled shuttle planes are filled, another and another and another plane will be wheeled out. Under the proposed system, the shuttle could lose that appeal.