Delayed Reaction

Recent reports on the national news indicate that airline flight delays are at the worst level now than they have ever been.

Have you ever been aboard a delayed flight and heard an announcement that the reason you cannot depart is due to “air traffic control restrictions” or something similar to that? Do you know what that means? It doesn’t always mean what you think it might.

During my carreer in the ATC system, we implemented restrictions frequently… to keep airplane movements SAFE and orderly. Such restrictions, however, are probably not the underlying cause of anywhere near as many delays for which they are receiving credit… or should I say, “blame.”

Every airport and every runway at every airport has a maximum capacity, usually expressed in terms of hourly operations (arrivals and departures). When the scheduled use of an airport or runway exceeds that capacity, not every airplane is going to be “on time”. Controllers are obligated to apply appropriate separation standards to all aircraft movements, regardless of whether an airport or runway is operating at, below, or above capacity. That’s not exactly the same thing as causing a delay… it’s more like doing a job according to the rules.

The rules also used to limit how many flights could be scheduled at several of the busiest airports in the country. Not so anymore. Any airline or group of airlines can schedule more flights than a given runway (or airport) can handle at a given time… and, since there is nothing to keep them from doing it… they do it. And it causes delays.

When the delays exceed a specified threshold, they are reported and records are kept “…so that the public would have clear information about the nature and sources of airline delays and cancellations.” However, even though the ATC system is functioning as it was intended, the resultant delay would not be reported as an over-scheduling delay (that category doesn’t exist, not even as a part of the Air Carrier category, unless it’s included in “etc.”) rather it would be recorded as an ATC delay in the NAS category.

That’s clear information all right… clearly misleading. I wonder why they don’t want us to know the truth?