[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2002
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
TOM DeLAY, Texas JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama ED PASTOR, Arizona
TODD TIAHRT, Kansas CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
KAY GRANGER, Texas JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Young, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Obey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Richard E. Efford, Stephanie K. Gupta, Cheryle R. Tucker, and Linda J.
Muir, Subcommittee Staff
________
PART 6
Page
AIRLINE DELAYS AND AVIATION SYSTEM CAPACITY:
March 15....................................................... 1
May 3.......................................................... 471
August 2....................................................... 643
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION MANAGEMENT:
March 28....................................................... 243
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION:
Federal Aviation Administration................................ 825
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
77-322 WASHINGTON : 2002
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida, Chairman
RALPH REGULA, Ohio DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin
JERRY LEWIS, California JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
JOE SKEEN, New Mexico MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
TOM DeLAY, Texas ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia
JIM KOLBE, Arizona MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
SONNY CALLAHAN, Alabama NANCY PELOSI, California
JAMES T. WALSH, New York PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
CHARLES H. TAYLOR, North Carolina NITA M. LOWEY, New York
DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
HENRY BONILLA, Texas JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
DAN MILLER, Florida ED PASTOR, Arizona
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia CARRIE P. MEEK, Florida
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi CHET EDWARDS, Texas
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, Jr., ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr.,
Washington Alabama
RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM, PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
California JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
TODD TIAHRT, Kansas MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
ZACH WAMP, Tennessee LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
TOM LATHAM, Iowa SAM FARR, California
ANNE M. NORTHUP, Kentucky JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan
JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri ALLEN BOYD, Florida
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
KAY GRANGER, Texas STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California
RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania
VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
James W. Dyer, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2002
Thursday, March 15, 2001.
AIRLINE DELAYS AND AVIATION SYSTEM CAPACITY
MORNING SESSION
WITNESSES
JANE GARVEY, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION..
KENNETH M. MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION
EDWARD A. MERLIS, SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AND
INTERNATIONALAFFAIRS, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION
JOHN CARR, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS
ASSOCIATION
CHARLES BARCLAY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF AIRPORT
EXECUTIVES
DUANE E. WOERTH, PRESIDENT, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION
Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. The Committee will be in order.
This morning we will look in depth at the horrible and
worsening problem of airline delays and cancellations. These
seem to have descended upon the country like a plague over the
last few years. Millions of passengers in this country are
terribly inconvenienced, as all the Members on this dias can
testify to; business meetings canceled, families disrupted,
kids that do not get united with their families, to mention
just a few of the problems. The personal and commercial
disruptions are nothing short of horrendous, and they have to
stop. If you cannot do your job, we will find somebody that
will. It is as simple as that.
Last year, one out of every four flights in the United
States was delayed. The average delay now has increased to over
50 minutes, and the Inspector General (IG) has reported on the
growing number of ``chronically late'' flights, flights which
are hardly ever on time. The news show Dateline reported a
couple of nights ago on NBC a few examples, highlighting
certain flights which are late almost all of the time.
Cancellations are just as big a part of the problem as delays.
The number of canceled flights has increased sevenfold in the
last five years. Your chance of having your flight canceled in
1995 was one-half of one percent. In 2000, that has risen to
three and a half percent.
With many of these people being funneled through a small
number of hub airports for connecting flights, it does not take
too many delays or cancellations to disrupt the plans of tens
of thousands of people, and because these aircraft are now 70
percent full it is almost impossible to rebook all these
passengers on the next available flight if there is one. The
delay experience by passengers is far greater than is even
being reported in the statistics, and that is why people are so
furious about airline travel today.
Instead of dealing with these problems head on, there tends
to be a lot of finger pointing. The airlines blame the FAA. FAA
blames pilots. Pilots blame the air traffic control system.
Somebody blames the weather. I do not think God is a problem in
airline delays.
I intend to get beyond the finger pointing today. We have
had enough of that. I do not want to hear it. I want to know
the answers in a very frank and open discussion, in a very nice
atmosphere.
introduction of witnesses
We will hear from the FAA administrator, Jane Garvey; the
Department of Transportation Inspector General Ken Mead; Chip
Barclay, the president of American Association of Airport
Executives; Ed Merlis, the senior vice-president of the Air
Transport Association; John Carr, president of the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association; and Captain Duane Woerth,
president of the Air Line Pilots Association. I thank each one
of you for being here today.
opening statements
In the interest of time, we are going to dispense with oral
statements from the witnesses and go directly to questions. We
will enter your written statements, without objection, in the
hearing record for Members to read and peruse.
[The prepared statements and biographies of the witnesses
follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rogers. Before we proceed, let me recognize my partner,
Marty Sabo, for any opening statements he cares to make.
Mr. Sabo. Mr. Chairman, let us proceed.
IG--RESPONSIBILITY FOR DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. That is a wonderful opening statement.
Okay. Here we go. I am going to start with the Inspector
General, and we are going to go down the line in order. The
question is who is responsible for the problem and what are you
going to do about it? Mr. Mead?
Mr. Mead. Responsibility has to be laid at the feet of the
Federal Aviation Administration, the airlines, the airports,
the local communities and I think main DOT. I say that because
they are all key players in the air traffic scenario and the
congestion and gridlock we have today.
What needs to be done about it? I think you need to move
out on a multifaceted front, and by multifaceted I mean you
have to examine the state of the air traffic control system and
its modernization. We need more runways because that is where
you are going to get your quantum leaps in capacity. You need
to take some accountability measures to make sure that the
people that are responsible for taking these actions are
ultimately held accountable.
Now, I think you take apart this problem in three pieces.
You would want to look at the short term because a lot of the
American traveling public wants to know: what are you going to
do for me this summer? Am I going to have a repeat in the
summer of 2001 of what we had in 2000? Like we had in 1999?
The fact is that we cannot have more runways in time for
the summer of 2001 or 2002. Air traffic control technology is
not going to yield material gains in the short term. Some
short-term actions need to be taken, and they need to be taken
in the airline scheduling area.
Also, FAA, DOT, and the airlines need to start tracking the
delays. We have two or three different systems. They are
recorded in our statement. They are very confusing. They are
misleading to the traveling public. We have to straighten out
the data on how many delays there are, how many cancellations
there are, and what the causes of both are. I am incredulous
that we do not have such a system in place today.
Second, FAA needs to come out with capacity benchmarks.
Those capacity benchmarks will state by airport, by the top 30
airports, how much traffic that airport can handle by time of
day under great weather conditions and under less great weather
conditions. The airlines need to take heed to what those
capacity benchmarks say, because the extent to which the
scheduling exceeds those benchmark lines, the traveling public
can expect problems.
I think a third action that should be taken is that the
Consumer Enforcement Division of the DOT needs to be beefed up.
The resources there are woefully inadequate. You have less
resources there now than you did in 1985, and it is all at a
time when the complaints are skyrocketing, and the delays are
skyrocketing, and the complaints are coming in. There are just
not enough resources there to provide adequate protection for
consumers when they do complain.
On runways, there are about 14 runways I believe in this
country that are posited for construction over the next say
decade. About six of them could be completed in the next
several years. I think we ought to set dates for completion of
those runways, and we ought to monitor them very carefully.
I think that is my short-term action plan.
FAA--RESPONSIBILITY FOR DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Ms. Garvey?
Ms. Garvey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would echo
in part some of the comments of Mr. Mead.
First of all, all of us at this table have the
responsibility for action, and I would focus as he did on both
the short-term and then long-term issues. Certainly in the
short-term effort, and I am going to speak specifically about
what the FAA can do. I think we have really changed the way we
do business. That is, we have opened Herndon, which is our
command center, and I think we have an unprecedented
collaboration both with the airlines, the partners of the
airlines, the controllers, and the pilots. Every morning at
5:00 a.m. we begin with conference calls, and they continue
every two hours throughout the day to plan a course of action.
I think that kind of collaboration is absolutely essential and
key.
The airlines with us have identified a triangle in this
country that really acts as a kind of choke point. It is from
Chicago to Washington to Boston. We have 21 short-term
initiatives for those choke point areas. We have initiated and
implemented half of those and are well on our way to the
others. They essentially involve changing the procedures in and
out of some of our busiest airports. Again, these are short-
term initiatives, but they have begun to produce some benefits.
We have been able to reduce some of the departure delays at
some of the New York airports. We need to stay the course on
those initiatives and make sure we stay with and get them done.
As Mr. Mead suggested, we are in the final stages of the
capacity benchmarks working very closely with the airports to
establish both the benchmarks at those airports, what the
capacity is, what the demand is. I think that is another again
very important short-term initiative.
Improving our weather technology is another short-term
initiative that we can do with the airlines. Again, I think
collaboration is absolutely the key with the controllers as
well.
Long-term, the Inspector General's testimony speaks about
the need to have a long-term strategic plan. We completed a
draft of that on December 31. It is critical because it
includes not just the technologies, but also the procedures,
the benchmarks, the budgets, the certification that is
required. Long term, it is a blueprint really for all of us. We
are working right now very closely with the airlines to make
sure that we all sign up to it. I think it is absolutely
critical that we sign up to that together.
So short-term initiatives around choke points and
procedures and things we can do right now are training with the
airlines, changing the way we do business through even more
collaboration and a long-term strategic plan to have in place
with the airlines. I think those are some important steps that
we can take, and they are steps we can take together.
NATCA--RESPONSIBILITY FOR DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Carr?
Mr. Carr. Thank you, Chairman. I am very grateful you asked
the question who is responsible, and I believe it is best
answered by acknowledging that we are all responsible.
Twenty-five years ago, aviation transportation was the
transportation system of the elite. Now flying is mass transit.
Any one of us can go down to the airport and hop the next
flight to L.A. The country did not maintain the infrastructure
needed to turn the transportation model of the elite into mass
transit.
For the last 25 years, we have accommodated growth and
demand through scale by building bigger airplanes--727, 737,
747, 757, 767--but not by building new runways. Due to market
forces, labor difficulties, and, quite frankly, the decisions
of the corporations, we have most recently started
accommodating demand through frequency. We go every hour on the
hour with smaller aircraft. That increased frequency is
straining the infrastructure that has basically been static for
the last 25 years.
I could not agree with you more. It is time to stop laying
blame. It is probably time to start laying down some concrete.
We believe and most people in industry will tell you that 25
airports getting one new runway apiece or 50 miles of runway at
the 25 busiest airports would probably absorb most of the
delays that we encounter in the system now, arrival delays, as
well as departure delays, but we are not going to be able to
get any runways poured by this summer, and I acknowledge that.
What can be done short term? I think we have to continue to
support AIR-21. I think we have to fully fund the initiatives
in AIR-21, and I think we have to give the Administration and
the FAA Administrator, quite frankly, a chance to make those
things work.
I believe that we have to name a very proactive and
aggressive Chief Operating Officer (COO) to lead the FAA
Performance Based Organization (PBO). I believe we have to give
the Management Advisory Council (MAC) and the Air Traffic
Services Subcommittee an opportunity to lead rather than just
follow. I believe that we need to hire more controllers.
Twenty years ago this August the Professional Air Traffic
controllers Organization (PATCO) strike of 1981 caused 11,500
air traffic controllers to be fired. Well, their replacements
are coming up on retirement age now, and we need to very, very
carefully monitor that situation so that the people I represent
know that replacements are coming on line.
I think we are all to blame for it. I think that the
answers to this dilemma are right here in this room. I would
like to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the
debate, and I look forward to working with everyone here on
proactive solutions.
ALPA--RESPONSIBILITY FOR DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Captain Woerth of the Air Line
Pilots Association?
Mr. Woerth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After three previous
speakers I concur with almost everything I have heard so far,
so I feel sorry for my colleagues even to the right of me.
I think I would like to emphasize a little bit what Mr.
Carr also just emphasized that over most of my nearly quarter
century as an airline pilot, airplanes are getting larger and
larger and larger, and the economies of scale are being used to
compete, both to get lower consumer prices and to get more
people to destinations.
A competitive reality today, and all the airlines do this,
and I understand why because it works, is especially for the
high yield business customer who is buying those fully
refundable tickets whose business plans are changing hourly, if
not daily. They want to be able to go any time they want to go.
They want to have hourly service to almost any place they go.
To respond to that, in a rational way the airlines have not
built bigger airplanes. Instead, they are using smaller and
smaller aircraft to accommodate high frequencies because that
is the business strategy that works. Nobody can argue with an
airline that is using a business strategy that works. The
problem is eight or nine major network systems cannot all have
the business strategy with the infrastructure we have right
now.
Let us look at the poster child. An example sometimes is
worth a thousand words. LaGuardia. Let us just say LaGuardia,
and let us say last year. To borrow a phrase from Chairman
Greenspan, when we lifted what we used to call slots--now we
want to call it capacity enhancement benchmarks or whatever. It
was the same thing.
The fact of the matter is we relaxed it, and the response
by the airlines was irrational, competitive exuberance. They
put so many flights into LaGuardia it had zero chance. On a
blue sky day with calm winds, there would be no chance that
airport has any chance of operating on time.
We have tried to deal in different ways with LaGuardia, but
those are the type of choke points that affect it. Not just New
York. They affect Los Angeles and San Francisco. Those
airplanes are supposed to end up in those destinations, and
they are an hour on the runway in LaGuardia. We are going to
have to do something practical and realistic about when we know
we have a choke point. We cannot pretend we do not know what
one of those problems is.
Part of our answer is going to have to be to make sure we
get all those passengers into airports like LaGuardia, keep the
capacity up, but not try to have a lot more airplanes than
necessary to do the same job. So that is one simple thing that
I am trying to deal with that we can actually do this year and
next year.
I think we all have to acknowledge that the technological
fixes, the stuff that is going to enable air traffic
controllers and pilots to deviate around weather more safely
and with less of the same rules and limitations we have today
are five, six and seven years away. If everything goes great,
if AIR-21 is supported and there is no drop in funding and five
other miracles happen, then everything is going to be okay
technologically five or six years from now.
In the meantime, we are going to have to make some very
hard decisions amongst all of us together and cooperate with
the limitations we have and not fool each other about what we
can schedule or operate in a type of system that simply is not
going to work. At one point I have even suggested that the
airlines might even be given antitrust immunity to, frankly,
work out some of their scheduling practices four or five times
a year. Let us just admit that nobody is going to unilaterally
withdraw. They cannot. If they pull down flights or
frequencies, their competitors will probably just add them.
Whether they are cooperating with each other I will leave that
to them to determine, but we need some practical solutions
because there are no technological miracles available to us,
sir.
Thank you.
ATA--RESPONSIBILITY FOR DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Merlis with the Air Transport
Association?
Mr. Merlis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for this
opportunity. I cannot disagree at all with the previous
speakers. I think the shared responsibility for the situation
we are in is a description of the system being out of kilter.
In an attempt to meet demand, we have put planes into an
infrastructure that is not adequate to meet the demand that we
have in this country, and what we have to do is find ways to
resolve that both short term and long term.
In the short term, among the initiatives that we have
undertaken, as Administrator Garvey described, is the daily
collaborative decision making to figure out how we deal with
the current weather of the day in order to accommodate the
passengers who want to travel in this system. Weather is a fact
of life, and we have to figure out a way to deal with it when
we have that situation.
Among the ways carriers are trying to deal with it is
dedicating fleets out of certain hubs so that if there is
adverse weather conditions it will not necessarily affect the
entire system. It will limit the adverse consequences to
traffic in and out of that particular hub. Other carriers are
spreading out their flights during the course of the day.
Instead of having let us say eight or ten banks of flights,
flights in and out of a hub, they have spread it out, reducing
the number in each bank and increasing the number of banks
starting earlier in the day and ending later in the day, and
that way there is less strain on the system at any one point.
Additionally, carriers are implementing technologies to
coordinate their dispatch systems with their reservation and
customer service systems so that we can do a better job.
Clearly we have a long way to go in doing a better job of
informing consumers and handling interrupted operations
situations when they do arise.
Another thing that some carriers are doing is taking planes
out of the regular fleet and putting them in as backup spares
so that if a problem arises because of weather, or a plane
cannot get into a destination because of a mechanical, there
are more planes available to be used as spares in order to take
those people to the destination and try to accommodate them in
that respect.
In the longer term, we have been working with the airport
community in attempting to find ways to deal with the
environmental hurdles which have been such significant
obstacles to expanding the runway capacity in this country.
Those are just a few of the initiatives that we have been
engaged in. There is more to be done, and I would be happy to
respond to further questions about that.
AAAE--RESPONSIBILITY FOR DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Charles Barclay with the American
Association of Airport Executives.
Mr. Barclay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would join my
colleagues and say we are all responsible, and one of the main
things we are responsible for not doing is being convincing
enough in some cases or looking forward enough in others to see
that we had in the 1990s, 200,000,000 people added to this
system who wanted to fly, and yet we have only added six
runways to the system at major airports. That is an equation
that simply does not work.
It is difficult in this complicated system to get people to
agree to build capacity in advance of demand. I think we are
now paying the price for a booming economy. We have great
demand for this system. It is enormously important to a country
as large as ours.
If you think of Germany and Japan and other competitors in
the world with smaller geographic countries, they can move
their economies with roads and railroads internally. Countries
the size of the United States have to make sure that we have
the airport and air traffic capacity to handle all the demand
that wants to get into the system.
One of the answers I firmly believe is not coming up with
really good controls, really good ways to allocate the
scarcities at different airports. We have to find a way to add
the capacity to make sure that we can meet all the demand that
wants to fit into this system.
I think it is helpful to understand that we have a network
airport system, 550 air carrier airports. Ninety percent of the
traffic, however, travels between the top 75, and it is a
network that is built around really only a few key, very
important connecting hubs. Those hubs have been getting a lot
of attention lately for their problems, and their problems are
real, but in looking at the system's airport capacity you have
to start with the understanding that that is a very
advantageous system.
By having a network that focuses on only a few key
connecting hubs, you get exponential growth, particularly for
small communities, in the frequency of service you can provide
and in load factors. This means you can have lower fares and
still the airlines can make a profit. Those network effects of
the way we run the system have great advantages.
The dark side of that same equation is that when one of
those hubs has a problem the same exponential effects ripple
blaze throughout the system. That is usually, in normal times,
an equation that you can put up with. If it is only an
occasional thunderstorm that rolls through Atlanta and the
network system is running properly, you wind up saying we can
accept those negatives. When we have an epidemic of delays like
we did last year where one out of every four flights is delayed
or canceled, it becomes a much more difficult equation to say
this is a good system.
What I hope we see is a network system where we can focus
on relatively few airports and add capacity at airports that
are the key choke points. With that you get enormous,
inordinate, positive curative factors for the efficiency of the
system as a whole. So if we can do something, and I am not
underestimating the fact that ten to 15 airports that we are
going to focus on are also some of the toughest places to add
capacity, but tough is not impossible. That is where we, in the
airport community, are going to focus our attention--not on
reducing environmental standards, but on streamlining the
process for getting to applying those standards.
Our difficulty in adding capacity has been when we measure
adding runways in decades rather than in years. That by
definition is a broken process. We want to simply speed up the
process of getting to the decision whether a project is a go or
a no go against today's environmental standards, and then we
can either build the project, or we can move on to finding
another solution.
We are all responsible. I really think there are solutions
to focus on, and that is what we in the airport community
intend to do.
FIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE AIRLINE DELAY PROBLEM
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. I thank all of you. Now, each of you
has said that what the previous speaker said was accurate and
correct. I am not going to let you get by with that. This is
not a circular firing squad that you are in here. We have a
line of sight to each one of you. You are not in a circle, and
we are going to come to some conclusions here today.
I am going to yield to the panel here for other questions
before I come back at you, but I will be back, and I want you
to be thinking. I want each of you to write down during the
course of this morning the five things that need to be done
that you can do to solve the problem. I do not want you to
confer with your compatriot there. I want five answers from
you.
We will take those and put them in a box and shake them up,
and I think we are going to find some common elements amongst
you. We are going to devise us a work plan. We are going to lay
out a plan, and each of your respective groups is going to have
then a work plan that this subcommittee is going to expect from
you.
We are not going to play around. Funding will go to the
places where solutions exist and where synergism exists, and it
is not going to be doled out the old, usual way. We are looking
for answers. We are looking for solutions. We will not rest
with anything short of that.
I am glad to have my full committee chairman with us today,
who is as interested as anybody is in this problem, and I
expect he will have some words to say at the appropriate time.
Now let me say this. I have nothing to lose. The flights,
my air travel schedule, could not be worse, so you cannot do
much to me. I am going to be very objective about this, and I
am going to be very harsh about this, and I am going to be
expectant that we will see improvements. If we do not see
improvements, there will be consequences. There will be
consequences to each one of your groups, like it or not.
As I said, I do not have anything to lose, but we are going
to see improvements. You are going to serve the American public
better. They deserve it. They are paying for it, and the
government has an obligation to see that that takes place. The
economy of the country, as has been said, is dependent upon
airline service. The largeness of the country dictates that.
So it is not just a matter of private concerns making
profits, although that is good. There is a public interest here
that supersedes most of that, and that is our concern. That
public interest is not being served today. You are turning us
into a bunch of travel ragers, and that is not good. That is
not good for stomachs. It is not good for families. It is not
good for business. It is not good for the well being of our
nation.
I want your five answers after a while, and then we are
going to compare notes. Then the work plan will be devised, and
there we go. Funding will follow or not follow. I do not know
how to be any more plain.
Mr. Sabo?
PEAK DEMANDS AND NOISE
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We just had a whole
series of Members testifying before our committee yesterday
with a whole series of requests related to different modes of
transportation. Some related to transit development. Others
related to highways.
I am struck that our problem in dealing with how we handle
other types of transportation fundamentally involves how we
handle peak demand. Often there the solution is simply to build
more capacity rather than to manage the existing capacity, and
our experience often is as it relates to highways the more we
build the quicker they are filled up and that we really have
not accomplished much at the end, so before we rush to simply
build more capacity, I think we have to pay particular
attention to how we handle peak demand.
Also, I may be different than the other Members of this
committee. The air problems I hear about, delays are minor in
comparison to the complaints I hear from citizens on noise. It
is large. It is immense. When people are asked what issue do I
hear about the most of my local constituency, it is noise. I
suspect our airport is typical of many in this country. They
were located years ago close to major population centers.
People bought homes with an old traffic system, with old
capacities, and it grows and grows and grows.
I would just suggest to you, and I happen to think our
airport commission is fairly aggressive in dealing with noise,
but it still leaves people very, very unhappy, and we are
increasingly discovering that we not only have the overhead
noise. We now have what is called low frequency noise from
ground level noise that FAA is going to have to figure out how
to deal with. The problem is real, and it is different than
overhead noise.
When you say it is going to take some time to build
runways, the local opposition is immense, and it relates to the
noise issue. The suggestions to move further out with new
airports, I do not find the industry jumping on board in most
cases. I guess occasionally. I am not sure what happened in
Denver. I think that was over opposition of industry in many
ways, so when you deal with all your suggestions I would
suggest that part of your solution is you ask for more capacity
and also how you deal with the noise issue.
AIRPORT CAPACITY--LANDINGS AND TAKEOFFS
Let me ask this question of the airport operators. What
capacity do you have today to regulate capacity during peak
hour demands? My understanding is you have limited control
basically because of federal law, and it involves a very
difficult issue and a hot one. I do not know how we resolve it
between passenger, between freight and between general
aviation.
As I understand law, it is equal priority for landings or
takeoffs involving very few people versus takeoffs for lots of
people. That is long and historic and not easily changed. Why
do you not tell us what you can or cannot do?
Mr. Barclay. All right. I can shed a little light on it, I
think.
There are a few airports like the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey that have minimum landing fees they put in
place to do some small thing about the airplanes coming in--the
general aviation aircraft, most of which in New York's case
have moved over to Teterboro as a result of those fees.
One of the key difficulties when people talk about why not
use more peak hour pricing at the airport? Even if you could,
without worrying about what the federal regulations are, you
are talking about an equation where the landing fees at an
airport are about four percent of an airline's operating cost.
So you have to make such a huge change in landing fees to hope
to have any impact on the decision of that airplane coming in.
That is one problem.
The second problem is the airlines do not always pass those
added fees for that airplane's landing on to the passengers in
that airplane. Sometimes if this is a real important hub to
them they tend to say well, I am going to keep my hub working,
so I am going to keep the planes coming in with that. I will
spread those added costs around my system differently.
So the airport is not really getting at the demand element,
which is that the passenger who wants to peak up. They like
traveling at 9:00 and 5:00 and getting home early. They need to
make those connecting bank peaks if it is a hub like
Minneapolis. So your ability to shift that demand around from
looking at it strictly from an airport operator's point of view
has some limitations.
There is also the question of if you raised a huge amount
of money with peak hour charges and you are, for example,
LaGuardia where you cannot add capacity. What normally happens
in our open market system is when you run out of capacity you
start charging monopoly rents, and the monopoly rents
eventually find their way to adding more capacity, which brings
the pressure back down on prices.
When you cannot add more capacity at a place like a
LaGuardia, for example, the question comes up. You are charging
these huge charges to spread things out. What do you do? What
do you do with that funding to help the system itself? Just
collecting it up as the Port of New York and New Jersey is not
one of the solutions either.
PEAK DEMANDS
Mr. Sabo. I am really not following your answer.
Mr. Barclay. Sorry. Where can I start again? The economics
of peak hour pricing are just much more complicated than
simply----
Mr. Sabo. My question was not simply peak hour pricing, but
just your general capacity to regulate peak hour. It might not
necessarily be pricing.
Mr. Barclay. Right. Yes. We cannot discriminate among
classes of carriers.
Mr. Sabo. What about during any time of the day?
Mr. Barclay. Other than economically, I do not think you
could start putting--the Airline Deregulation Act said that
local and state governments could not get into regulating which
rates and services----
Mr. Sabo. Yes. It is a national system where local
governments, you know, are frustrated because as they deal with
the problems we have preempted them in most cases. Is that not
right?
Mr. Barclay. That is correct. In order to have a national
system, you cannot have a patchwork of regulation out there.
Mr. Sabo. Ms. Garvey, do you have anything?
Ms. Garvey. Just to add, Congressman, in the case, for
example, of LaGuardia what we are trying to do, because
recognizing that there really is a federal interest in the
national system, we are working closely with LaGuardia to try
to come up with a couple of alternatives of demand management
strategies. All of us I think have come to that somewhat
reluctantly.
On the other hand, as everyone has indicated, we cannot get
a runway down there in a short period of time, if ever, so in
LaGuardia you really have to take some different steps and look
at it differently. We tried the lottery. That was definitely a
short-term answer. We are now looking at a couple of
alternatives to put in the Federal Register to get some
comments, but they would be demand management strategies. They
might be something like an auction.
Chip has raised a really interesting question. If you have
a premium landing fee, what do you do with the money? We would
suggest that maybe there might be some interest for small
communities to use that money, but there are certainly some
legal questions around that. We think getting it in the Federal
Register and getting some comments around it and showing some
action around it is really important.
I know as Mr. Sweeney knows, there are some very, very
important public policy questions, though, any time you do that
trying to make sure that we are still protecting access to
small communities. We have some opportunities with demand
management. I think the important thing is to get something in
the Federal Register to give the airlines and airports an
opportunity to comment.
We are trying to focus primarily on a place like LaGuardia
where there is a real problem rather than thinking of, you
know, maybe a broad policy that might be pretty controversial,
but let us look at a place where we have a problem, see if we
can figure out a solution that is some kind of a compromise and
move forward.
PASSENGER ONLY AIRPORTS
Mr. Sabo. I suppose my most fundamental question is to what
degree should our major hub airports and major other passenger
carrying airports be geared primarily as passenger airports?
Ms. Garvey. I think that is a very good question. I think
when you look at where airports are heading, it is very
possible that at some point there will be some airports that
will become more cargo airports. Certainly Memphis is almost
that today. We might have kind of niche airports. In the case
of LaGuardia, for example, are there some incentives we can put
in place to encourage even some of the passenger air carriers
to go more to John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK).
We are looking at a whole range of those issues. Niche
airports are a possibility for the future, and some are perhaps
even encouraged by the federal government or the local airport
authorities to encourage air carriers to go perhaps to other
airports. I think that is important.
Frankly, the work that AIR-21 or the incentives that you
put in place where small airports are given a lot more money
are going out to some of the small and mid size airports. I
think that is a big help as well if we really look at the
system.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Chairman?
SAFETY RELATED DELAYS AND RUNWAY CAPACITY
Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I wanted to
say a word of welcome to all of the witnesses at the table and
say thank you very much for being here. I want to say a special
welcome to Captain Woerth, who happens to live in the same
community where I do. I just learned this morning we actually
lived in the same building for a while. It is good to have all
of you here.
The issues that have been raised so far are important
issues to all of us who travel, and that is everyone at this
table, our families, our constituents, but I wanted to be here
for one reason, Mr. Chairman. I would not want to solve the
problem of on-time service at the risk of safety.
I am a survivor of an airplane crash, and I know what it is
like to feel that thud and see the flames and the explosion and
barely get out alive, and so when I go to the airport with my
family I am concerned about getting where I want to go, but I
am primarily concerned about getting there safely.
I have two questions I would just like to throw out, and
anybody can respond that would like to. Number one. Of the
delays that we are talking about and the difficulties we are
talking about, how many of them or what percentage of them are
related to safety? Something that I am satisfied that Captain
Woerth is concerned about because he is in that airplane.
Secondly, I wanted to ask Mr. Carr about runways. Are we
talking about building new runways or extending existing
runways? Just what is the need as it relates to runways?
Those are my two issues here today, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carr. I would be happy to address them both. I am very,
very glad to hear you mention safety because safety is our
business. As air traffic controllers, that is our only
business, and business is very good.
We hold the safety of the flying public as a sacred trust,
and I have to tell you that I do not know the percentage of
delays that can be attributed to a safety margin, but I can
tell you that it is more than just a little. Seventy-five
percent of all delays are weather related, and I would much
rather delay you five minutes too many than one minute too few.
So to the extent that we add margin for safety in real time as
we work the aircraft, absolutely. Delays are added to the
system incrementally by air traffic controllers who have
nothing but the safety of the flying public at their very
foremost.
With respect to runways, I think everybody will agree that
at the airports where capacity has reached its limits and,
quite frankly, where demand exceeds capacity, the only way you
can increase it is by adding new concrete, by increasing the
number and types of runways at that airport.
O'Hare has three different sets of parallel runways that
can be configured 27 different ways, but the addition of
another runway at Chicago O'Hare would increase capacity there
by almost 40 flights an hour. I happen to know that because I
worked there for ten years. So as it relates to runways, it is
going to take brand new concrete to accommodate the increased
growth.
AIRLINE DELAY RELATIONSHIP TO SAFETY
Mr. Young. Captain, before you respond, I was very
interested in your written statement where you say the issue of
air traffic service delays and their relationship to system
safety is an issue in which the Air Line Pilots Association
(ALPA) has a deep and lengthy history of interest. I find that
very assuring.
Mr. Woerth. Well, you should. As you know, our motto has
been the same and we are having our seventieth anniversary this
year. ALPA was formed in 1931. From the beginning it has been
``Schedule with safety,'' Always understanding whether it be
cargo or passengers always wanting to arrive on time. That is
what a commercial business does, but if you do not have the
emphasis on safety you are not going to have much of an
industry. Having said that, that has never changed and never
will change.
To address some of the things that Mr. Carr just said,
until we get some better tools, to increase the margins of
safety, we are going to have to work with what we have. Now, we
are trying to maximize capacity, but there are limits of what
the tools and information and between what a pilot can accept
and what a controller can authorize.
We have to be not 50 percent certain or 60 percent certain.
We want to be as close to 100 percent certain that what he just
authorized and we just accepted is something that says there
are no other airplanes in the vicinity, and that in the
interest of hurrying up it does not cause a problem that none
of us could live with.
One of the things I think we can do better and we are
starting to is, I think the spring initiative, as we called it,
S2K. The collaborative stuff between certainly the FAA, the
controllers, the dispatchers and the pilots is working. We can
even do better.
Information is always power, and I am operating on the
information I have. John's people are working on the
information they have, and hopefully we can have the national
command center have a better national picture because one of
the things that we have in this system is that it is truly all
interrelated. LaGuardia causes problems in Los Angeles, and
Denver causes problems in Miami.
In the National Command Centers we cooperate better and
have more information. Usually sometimes we do not have the
same information. That is why we have disagreements. What the
controller in Chicago or over Cleveland Center where there is a
bottleneck sees or believes is the weather pattern, we need to
insure that we all agree on what is in front of us and what the
alternatives are. We can do a better job of that. The spring
initiative is a good start. I think we are all committed.
I will give you one of my answers ahead of time, Mr.
Chairman. More cooperation with the National Command Center
between all the principal parties in making those decisions on
where the delays are and what our alternatives are is something
we can do better. I think we had a good start last year, but I
have committed the Air Line Pilots Association to working even
harder on that initiative.
AIR-21 RUNWAY CONSTRUCTION FUNDING
Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, just one final question for Ms.
Garvey. AIR-21. Somebody mentioned AIR-21 in their response.
AIR-21 basically made runway construction mandated, if I
remember correctly. Those monies would now come from mandatory
accounts, as opposed to discretionary accounts. Am I correct
there?
Ms. Garvey. Well, it certainly has a level of protection.
Rich will know this better. I guess you would call it a fire
wall, and I have to say that has been extraordinarily helpful.
I think the airports are very, very grateful for that
additional funding.
The challenge for us at the federal level is to make sure
that we can do everything we can, as Chip said, to help really
streamline the process where it is appropriate. We do not want
to short circuit any of the environmental laws, but streamline
it where we can.
We have some teams in place for airports that really have
an impact on the national system. Dedicated teams in place,
streamline the process, do more simultaneously. Secretary
Mineta has talked about coordinating more with the Cabinet
Secretaries on some of the environmental issues, and I think
that is a great help as well.
Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Mead. Mr. Chairman? I wanted to comment on AIR-21. I
think the jury is still out, sir, on how much of that money is
going to go to runways. It is true that a large portion of that
pot is to go to the airports. That is different from saying
that it is going to go to the runways. The jury is clearly
still out.
With respect to your safety points, I, too, am glad to hear
that point made. People talk about delays, congestion, and
cancellations in efficiency terms, but there is a safety issue
involved. This past year we had 420-odd runway incursions,
which is where the planes come too close together on the
ground. We also had a record year for operational errors, which
usually occur in the air where there is a loss of the
separation minimum, so those are two priority areas.
Mr. Rogers. Just quickly to follow up before yielding
further, you said the monies would go to the local airports,
not necessarily for runways. Where else would the money be
spent? Could it be spent?
Mr. Mead. It could go to a wide range of things. It could
go to safety features. I think it could go along with PFCs
(Passenger Facility Charges), which you authorized increasing
to a wide range of things like parking lots. There is a very
long list. Noise barriers--noise is a popular one.
Mr. Barclay. Mr. Chairman, if I could add? Certainly we are
all focused on runways at a couple of these key airports where
there is not enough runway capacity, but there is a wide
variety of problems in the system.
An airport is a system locally, so it does not matter at a
big airport whether you do not have enough runway capacity or
enough road capacity to get the passengers in and out of the
airport. You still cannot operate efficiently, or if you do not
have enough gates for all the carriers that want to provide
service.
There are a number of needs airports have to meet, so when
you look at the total spending you do not see it all
concentrated only on the air side on runways. There are a
variety of needs, and if you then start examining each
situation they usually wind up making sense.
As I was saying in my opening, from a network point of
view, though, we do now at these key hub airports need to focus
on those runways because they are impacting the capacity at all
the airports in the system.
airport grant funding for hub airports
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mead, under the AIR-21 is there any formula
that would direct a disproportionate amount of those monies to
these hub airports where the choke points are?
Mr. Mead. Well, there is a formula certainly that is based
on enplanements, and if these airports, the hub airports, have
a passenger facility charge, which most of them do, they take a
hit on the amount of AIP (Airport Improvement Program) money,
the airport improvement grant money, that they would otherwise
be entitled to under formula, but the PFC benefit far outweighs
the amount of money that you would get under a formula. There
is also a discretionary grant program that FAA uses to fund hub
airports as well as others, but that is not something that they
are entitled to by law.
Mr. Rogers. Well, there may be ways to adjust formulas to
where the real problems are, and if there is no way now there
very well may be a way because we are going to force a
solution. If it takes an act of Congress, and authorization
act, that is not without precedent.
Mr. Mead. I would encourage the Subcommittee, if it goes in
that direction, that you also consider the passenger facility
charge because the airport improvement grant program monies,
per se, as a proportion of the total funding of these large
airports is not that great. When you add the passenger facility
charge in, which is authorized under federal law, it increases
quite a bit.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Olver?
new runway construction in chicago-boston-new york region
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
you taking me at this point. I have another committee that I
rank on that is meeting at the same time, and I would like to
get back to it.
Chip Barclay, you made a comment, which I am close to
quoting, that it is tough to build capacity, but tough is not
impossible. I wonder if you have identified for yourself a
future profession. Maybe you should be handed the LaGuardia
situation.
Mr. Barclay. As someone once said, if nominated I will move
to Mexico, and if elected I will fight extradition.
Mr. Olver. I see. Mr. Mead, you had mentioned that there
were 14 runways that were actually under consideration around
the country. Mr. Carr, you used the number 25. Now, I do not
know whether that was a kind of a speculative number or a
hypothetical number, whereas Mead was talking about the ones
that are under consideration.
I wanted to ask Ms. Garvey. How many of those 14 or 25,
whichever it is, are in the iron triangle, the delay triangle
from Chicago to Boston to New York?
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, that is exactly the challenge.
They are important runways, like Atlanta, for example, is very
critical in some of the choke point issues. In fact, Atlanta
ranks up there in terms of delays. Some of the most critical
ones like San Francisco and Los Angeles are in the very, very
early planning stages, so that is really the challenge. We have
a number that are on deck, so to speak, like Detroit and
Charlotte and so forth, and those are very good. They are
important to the system, but they do not have the same
criticality that a Los Angeles or a San Francisco would have,
and that is really the challenge, or LaGuardia where you cannot
really put a runway, and you have to think of something else.
Mr. Olver. Well, how many of the 14 that are in the
planning stages, even early, I take it, given your comments
about what is at the very early stage. How many of those 14 are
in the critical triangle?
Ms. Garvey. I think----
Mr. Olver. Your Boston-New York-Chicago triangle.
Ms. Garvey. I would like to go back and get the actual
number for you. I notice that Mr. Mead has a chart here.
Mr. Olver. Would you like to tell me how many are in that
area?
Mr. Mead. Yes. I can run right down the list, sir. Houston
is short-term. By short term, I mean by 2003, that time frame.
Houston, Minneapolis, Orlando, Denver, Miami, Charlotte,
Atlanta. Well, Atlanta is 2005. Cincinnati, Boston, 2005-2006,
Dallas-Fort Worth, 2005-2006.
One of the problems here is that when we were preparing for
this testimony, we tried to get a list of the runways that were
included in the top 40 airports in the country and what the
schedules were. What we found in a number of instances were
three different numbers. One number the FAA had, another number
the airport had, and another number Mitre Corporation, which
was helping to prepare the strategic plan that Ms. Garvey
referred to, had.
One of our recommendations in the testimony is that for
airports that are on this list that we settle on a date, and we
track that date, and we hold ourselves accountable for meeting
it.
Mr. Olver. I thank you for that. In listening, I do not
know whether you got to all 14, whether you actually named all
14, but I only noticed that Boston and Cincinnati were within
that triangle of the ones that you mentioned.
The corollary or the conclusion is that the capacity issue
is not going to be significantly solved within that triangle by
anything that we can do very quickly on the basis of runways. I
am not sure that there is anything--well, there are the various
management techniques that will have to serve in the short run.
In the long run, within that triangle, it seems to me,
knowing most about the Boston to Washington route, that is most
likely to be solved by high speed rail, that portion of it.
That would be helped by that in reducing the number of landings
and takeoffs.
I saw an analysis of what the timing was on the Washington
to New York run now by plane, by car, by air in the last few
days, and now finally with the new Amtrak Acelas going, and I
do not know exactly how reliable that is yet, but the center to
center of the cities, Washington to New York, was within about
ten minutes of each other between rail and air. Driving was
quite a bit farther behind like an hour more behind.
That was just recently analyzed, so that is certainly an
area where this committee also has the responsibility for
making certain that we maybe make certain that those places
where high speed rail would be effective can get at the
problem. Our traffic problem cannot totally be solved either by
autos or planes or viewing them each in very separate kinds of
ways. They need to be viewed together. The triangle is 400
miles on one side from Boston to Washington and about 800 from
Washington to Chicago and about 1,000 from Boston to Chicago.
I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. My feeling is that in situations like this there
may have to be a situation where you can with a change of law,
and certainly the tradition in law has been there, that general
aviation maybe has to be moved out of the central really choke
point.
In New York there is Westchester, Islip, and Teterboro and
some others that are not too far. In Boston there is Beverly
and Norwood. I hesitate facing anybody and appearing again
after having suggested that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Does anybody want to comment on that
suggestion?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, if I could? Not on the general
aviation question, but on Congressman Olver's earlier comment.
One, I think your point about other modes of transportation
is important. When we think in terms of the system, we also
need to think particularly along the Northeast corridor of
other modes of transportation, but also your point about what
will be the solution.
Frankly, when we think in terms of the capacity benchmarks
that is one of the data points that we hope we can use in
sitting down with airlines and with airports and saying look,
what makes sense here? If it is not a runway, are there
procedural changes? Is there technology? Is there data
management? Are there scheduling issues? What can we figure out
together to deal with the solution?
I will defer to others on the general aviation question.
[The information follows:]
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air traffic congestion response
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Callahan?
Mr. Callahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Following along with that same line, and I hope Dog Patch,
USA, is not in Kentucky. I think it is in Arkansas, but I
recall reading once that they had a tremendous problem in Dog
Patch, USA. They had a U-turn at the edge of a cliff at the
approach to Dog Patch, and people were always running over the
cliff. They were breaking their arms and their legs, so they
comprised a committee to find a solution to that, and the
committee came up with a solution, and that was to build a wing
onto the hospital.
Let me tell you. What I am hearing here today is that you
all are indicating that maybe the solution is to provide more
runways to the already congested air traffic problems. For
instance, in Atlanta I am sure that you can use additional
runways there, and I am sure that would facilitate some of the
problem, but the traffic in Atlanta is approaching a crisis
stage.
With the least bit of weather problem, Atlanta, and I am
sure that O'Hare and I am sure that all the hub areas have the
same problem, but we have a problem, and the problem cannot be
resolved by more concrete.
You have not had any problem, your entire industry, getting
money out of this Congress. We have been most generous. Last
year we were more generous than ever before, and we are willing
to make these type of efforts to get you the necessary money,
but the solutions that have been taking place, compounded I
know by the problems of increased air traffic, are not working.
The passenger rage that Chairman Rogers mentioned is
something that we can witness nearly every weekend in Atlanta,
whether the sun is shining or whether there is a tornado within
50 miles of Atlanta. There has got to be a solution, and the
solution is not to build more runways to an already overcrowded
terminal. You have got to find a vehicle to transfer the
routes.
I am from Mobile, Alabama, and we have to in most every
instance go through Atlanta to get anywhere. We have to go
through Atlanta to get to New Orleans or to San Francisco, and
there are opportunities available if we could find a way
whereby we could divert our western traffic to the west rather
than to the east.
I do not know what the solution is. Certainly you six are
the experts in this field, and you represent every area of our
concerns. Certainly with your talent you ought to be able to
come up with some solution to this problem. We try to resolve
it on the local level. We try to encourage airlines to come in
to compete against Delta.
I fly Delta every week, and they are most courteous to me.
They give me good service. I fly home every week. I have only
had to spend one night in Atlanta in the last ten years, so
Delta takes care of me, but the average passenger is not a
United States Congressman, and the average passenger being
bumped in Atlanta or having the last flight out of Atlanta to
Mobile canceled or delayed or over booked is a serious problem.
We have undertaken the step to get more carriers into our
captive little city because we are captive to Delta, but we are
even having difficulty there. I know I wrote to the chairman of
one of the airlines and asked for his audience if he came to
Washington for anything. You know, that was February 14, and I
have not even heard back from him.
They are not interested, number one. They do not have
planes. Number two, it is difficult to establish new routes,
but you all in your capacity have got to redirect this traffic
instead of concentrating on the same system that we have. If
you build more runways in Atlanta, you are going to have more
airplanes in the air, and every time a small weather problem
comes up it is going to be even more congested. That is not
going to stop it.
If we can find a system with your talents with the money
that the Chairman just told you would be available if you can
provide us with some concrete solutions, but other than the one
solution that we build more runways, and I certainly respect
that, sir, and I would also echo the Chairman's concerns about
our primary concern is safety. We do not care how much it is
delayed, and we do not care how many are canceled. We want to
make absolutely certain that the planes you fly us in are safe
and protective of us.
We will provide you with whatever resources you need to
ensure that and whatever inspections you need, but our concern
I do not think can be resolved if we are going to have
continued increases in capacity and travel simply by expanding
the problems that are there now.
Mr. Carr. Yes, sir. I do not want to pretend that new
runways are the silver bullet solution to the dilemma that is
currently facing the traveling public. It is but one piece of
the puzzle. We are working with the agency collaboratively
right now on designing new sectors that can off load some of
that work, that can redesign some airspace, that can move some
air waves around so as to spread the workload.
This is not a new problem. I like to call it a good news/
bad news problem. The good news is the crisis has gotten so bad
that on August 8 Life magazine ran a cover story called Stack
Up: The Air Traffic Control Problem. The bad news is they ran
that on August 8, 1968, 33 years ago, so we are not digging up
new ground here.
That article on August 9, 1968, said that we need a fourth
airport in New York, and that need has been known for over a
decade, so that predates that need to 1958. That article also
said that traffic in the New York area gets so acute the
airplanes are forced to wait on the ground as far away as
Atlanta and Miami and Los Angeles. That is not new. That is 33
year old information I am regurgitating to you out of Life
magazine.
New runways are just one part of the solution that I think
the community has come up with to collaboratively deal with the
issue. Another part of it is airspace redesign. Another part of
it is the margins that we can nibble at with respect to new
technology.
I could not agree with you more that everything has to be
measured up against that litmus test. Is it safe? If it is
safe, then I think we should all work collaboratively to
implement it.
Mr. Callahan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
AIRPORT CAPACITY UTILIZATION
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Callahan.
True or false? There is plenty of capacity out there that
is not being used. There are hundreds of airports, dozens at
least, of some significant size whose runways are practically
empty today, whose terminals are perfectly good and have plenty
of capacity. They are just not being used. Is that true or
false?
Mr. Carr. That is true.
Mr. Rogers. But the airlines have chosen to establish their
own hub systems which have focused traffic in just a few of the
airports of the country. True or false?
Mr. Carr. I think they have focused it where market forces
have sent them.
Mr. Rogers. True or false?
Mr. Carr. I would say that is true.
Mr. Rogers. Is a solution at least in the short term to get
more capacity in the air system immediately if the airlines
dispersed their hubs a bit more? True or false?
Mr. Carr. I do not know that I am necessarily qualified to
answer that, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Well, somebody is here. What do you think?
Mr. Merlis. While it might be short term, I do not know
what the adverse economic consequences of it would be.
One of the reasons hubs are where they are is they
generally generate a lot of originating traffic. A number of
hubs that previously existed--for instance, U.S. Airways had
Indianapolis--it had Dayton. American Airlines at one time had
Raleigh-Durham and Nashville, and Continental once had
Greensboro--apparently did not generate enough local traffic
for that hub to remain financially viable.
Mr. Rogers. But hubs by definition are transfer points. It
is not local traffic that is keeping those hubs hubs. It is the
traffic from all the rest of the country that feeds through the
hub to somewhere else that makes it a hub. Is that right?
Mr. Merlis. Generally, sir.
Mr. Rogers. My question is there are tons of airports out
there with beautiful runways that are sitting empty that could
give us immediate capacity if the airlines would merely either
subhub and disperse some of the heavy traffic into the
concentrated big hubs that we have now. Is that a realistic
possibility?
Mr. Merlis. As I was about to say, sir, I do not think so
because generally 50 percent of the traffic at a hub originates
there, and the financial viability of a locale which has ten
percent or 15 percent----
Mr. Rogers. Hang on.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir?
Mr. Rogers. Half of the traffic in Pittsburgh is not local.
You have to prove that to me. Pittsburgh for U.S. Air, their
hub.
We fly in there from all over the country and transfer to
another plane. A minuscule percent of the travelers through the
Pittsburgh Airport are local travelers.
Mr. Merlis. I do not have that. I will get the facts. I was
saying generally. There are some hubs which obviously are less
than that.
Mr. Rogers. Atlanta?
Mr. Merlis. I will get the data for you, sir.
Mr. Rogers. LaGuardia?
Mr. Merlis. LaGuardia? Maybe LaGuardia.
Mr. Rogers. I do not think any of the major hubs are kept
in business by the local traffic. It is the fly through
traffic.
I am just saying why can we not utilize some of the other
airports that are laying there wide open like St. Louis and
disperse the traffic away from these super hubs that have
become the choke points for American travelers?
Mr. Merlis. I think one of the things some carriers have
done is more point to point flying where the volume does take
it.
For instance, there are now flights on American Airlines, I
believe, to San Jose from the east coast instead of going
through Dallas or Chicago, so where there is enough traffic
carriers do. Is it at the rate which diminishes the congestion?
Clearly not.
INCREASED FLYING TIMES
Mr. Rogers. You are not doing enough of that because the
delays keep going up. I wish for the days when you had more
point to point flying non-stops. The hub system has just
increased the flying time for most American travelers normally.
I used to be able to travel from Lexington to Washington in
an hour or less. Now it takes me five or six hours to get to
the same spot at probably triple the cost. I suspect most of
American travelers have the same problem. If you are flying hub
to hub you have it made. If you do not live in a hub city, you
are up a creek.
Mr. Mead. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Rogers. Yes? Who?
Mr. Mead. That was me.
CAPACITY BENCHMARKS
Mr. Rogers. Oh, yes. Mr. Mead?
Mr. Mead. I think there is something to what you are saying
on Mr. Callahan's point and some of the other Members on this
dispersion issue.
Soon FAA will be coming out with these capacity benchmarks
for the top 30 airports. You will be able to see by looking at
those what is happening in the way of scheduling in
relationship to what that airport can physically handle.
Currently, though, there are no consequences for just
unlimited scheduling other than hearings like this, public ire.
I think if there were some consequences, whether they are
simply cajoling or they are legal in nature, I think you would
begin to see some dispersion and some more sensible pattern in
the air traffic control system.
I also think Mr. Merlis is right. At the present time,
these mega hubs, they are economic gravy trains, for want of
another term, and they economically make sense. That is where
the most revenue can be generated, and the airline does not see
the same financial incentive for going to another airport.
The thesis, though, that there is lots of unused capacity
in this country, particularly on the ground, is absolutely
correct.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I would hope the airlines would see the
ire that is building in the country and the demands upon us to
do something about it, whatever it is.
None of us want to reregulate. That is not a conversation
piece at the moment, but if the demands from our public
continues upon us we will do whatever it takes to make this
system work. I would hope that dispersal from these super hubs
would be immediately addressed as a possible at least short-
term answer to today's capacity limitations that we have.
We have about eight minutes before a vote. It is a single
vote, so we will stand in recess for a few minutes as we go
vote.
[Recess.]
COMPETITIVE PRICING
Mr. Rogers. We thank you for your indulgence, and now we
will turn to Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the panel
members.
This weekend I was a participant in the bipartisan retreat,
and I learned two things that I will talk about. One is that
you support the Chairman whenever you can, and you hopefully
have many occasions to do that, and the second thing I found
out is that Mother Nature is still unhappy about the
deregulation and the hub system as it developed.
Taking John's position and Chairman Callahan and Chairman
Rogers, if I look at Los Angeles, which I hear is going to
build or is in the process of building a new runway and having
traveled in that part of the country frequently, you find that
now if the prices were comparable to flying into L.A. that I
can go to Burbank, I can go to Ontario, I can go to Orange
County, and probably there is another one there you do not know
about, just as easily as flying to Los Angeles (LAX), but
because of the price of the ticket--it is not the convenience
of getting from LAX to downtown, but getting to where I am
flying from to L.A., the price of the ticket--we go to LAX.
In the line of questioning that the Chairman and some of my
peers have asked, in the short term is it possible to use and
provide incentives both to the airports that are under utilized
and to the airlines who obviously have made political decisions
so that we might be able to distribute the landing capacity and
remove some of those choke points?
I think that maybe the six of you there and those of us on
the committee may look to what can we do to provide incentives
because I would agree with John Olver. If you go to New York,
there are other smaller airports that might be feasible to land
in if there were incentives to have the airlines fly there and
provide incentives so that the prices will be competitive in
this area.
I had the pleasure of being at a meeting with Ms. Garvey,
and we talked about the potential technology that is being
developed. One of the things that struck me was that
information is not shared by the airport, by the airlines, by
the air traffic controllers and whoever else is in the system.
Sometimes that lack of sharing of information--and the pilot up
in the plane--causes sometimes delays.
Weather. Mother Nature is what, 80 or at least 60 or 70
percent of the problem, and we were told in this particular
briefing that sometimes the airline may have information that
it may not want to share with the airport people or share with
the air traffic controller, and so sometimes delays may grow
longer. Weather is the reason it is being delayed, but not
compromising safety the planes could be taken off quicker or
different routes.
The other thing that I found at that briefing is that we
tend to only think of the management of the airplane only if it
is in the air, but if there was information shared from the
time the plane took off in terms of when it is going to land,
what the weather conditions and the groundwork preparation was
made in terms of crews being able to be there on time to get it
off, get the luggage off on time, that sometimes better
coordination between the whole system will cause the airlines
to maybe run a little better, and you will not have some of the
problems that we are experiencing today.
We also talked about the aircraft itself, that maybe the
technology will be there sometime when the mechanics will know
while the airplane is in the air some of the problems that they
are experiencing so when they land immediately you can go and
get to the source of the problem.
The other technology I was impressed with was communication
between the pilot and the air traffic controller, but somehow
we have to if we can improve the speed of it and that basically
this voice communication can be improved. Maybe it can be done
electronically through whatever instrument the pilot can see,
and that would help out.
What I would like to hear from you is this short-term
solution because concrete is going to be problem. I can tell
you in Phoenix we just built a runway. It took us almost 20
years from the day they thought about it until the day we
dedicated it, which was about a month ago.
I will tell you that with that third runway we now have the
constituents not around the airport, but constituents out in
Owatuki, which is miles away, complaining about the noise. I
think that Sky Harbor would have a very difficult time in terms
of people supporting a fourth runway, but they are going to try
it to increase capacity. Noise that is created by additional
aircraft is impacting the outer suburbs of Phoenix and not only
the downtown area, but the outer suburbs.
AIRPORT CAPACITY UTILIZATION
Just contemplating on concrete and causing that to be the
solution may be one that is going to be hard to reach, so I
would ask is it possible to look at another alternative, and
that is using under utilized airports close to the major hub
that we can distribute the wealth and other incentives you can
provide to the airlines that would cause them to look at that
solution?
Whoever would like to respond to that.
Mr. Woerth. I will be foolish enough to try to answer that.
One thing, and it goes to some of the other questioning
from the Chairman and others, is that I might be a surprising
witness who has as many arguments with airline management as
anybody could ever possibly have, but I also recognize that a
number of years ago that they did start to try to eliminate
some of the delays in their own hubs before it reached the
crisis proportion we are in here and to try to get excess
capacity and went to a multiple hub strategy.
What happened in every case is it failed. None of the small
hubs made money. I mean, they did try it. Whether they have
better yield curves today or whether they could do it
differently I do not know if I could speak to that, but I do
know they tried. There are only about five or six hubs in the
country that make money, and there is a certain critical mass.
At some point they do not.
If we need to change, and again the variable is, is there
something as a matter of public policy and interest that we can
do to incentivize a different financial outcome? Because they
are not going to move there with the wrong financial outcome.
Mr. Pastor. Right.
AIRLINE COMPETITION
Mr. Woerth. I think efforts to explore that are going to be
required, but they are going to need an incentive. It might be
on the cost side, and I am really leery about interfering in
pricing. I think that is a very dangerous place to go, and I
think we really need to make it work for the consumer and
everybody else allowing the market to determine the pricing,
but we can influence it if we want to incentivize cost, because
there is a matter of public policy.
We recognize we have a problem. The Chairman made it very
clear. We want solutions. We are tired of talking about it. We
want to do things. I think evaluation of what we used to have
essential air services. That was one way to incentivize for
small communities.
We need other airports incentivized to have the cost
lowered or subsidized in some way. That airline has an
incentive. He has a lower cost. Now he has a pricing model that
he can make sense out of. All these things. You cannot have one
without the other. We have to do it together.
We are not going to be able to go, and I do not think in a
competitive environment they are not going to volunteer to go
someplace that loses money, so we are going to have to as a
matter of public policy and to make it work and not kid
ourselves if it is going to be incentives it is going to be on
the cost side to incentivize them to go someplace they are not
incentivized to go right now to make it work with the pricing
models that they all compete against each other with.
All these hubs compete. If you are going from Los Angeles
to Boston, there are about eight ways you can get there through
some hubs, and they are all going to compete with each other.
That is going to be a pricing model. They are going to use a
different airport. That pricing model is going to have to work
in there as well.
I think we should not necessarily look away from any
solutions, but in all these things in public policy there are
conflicts. You fix one problem, and it might be the noise
problem. I know people do not want noise, this is the seventh
ATC hearing I have testified at, but they do not want delays
either.
As long as runways are one of the choke points--not the
only choke point. As John said, with runways you are either
waiting to take off or you are waiting to land on a runway, so
we cannot pretend runways are not a big part of it, but the
other part, as John mentioned, is the ATC system itself, the
sectors, how much traffic do you have in the air at any given
point. We know where those choke points are as well, so I think
we should really focus on all of it.
We are not going to have the silver bullet that is going to
fix the nation at every airport and every community and every
state. But if we can fix the top seven choke points both on the
ground and in the air, then the way to approach the problem is
to go after the biggest problem. That is where the most bang
for your buck is going to occur.
The seven top airports and the seven top airspace problems.
If we can attack them, we will have the biggest again solution
in the quickest possible time, sir.
AIRLINE INCENTIVES
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Chairman, can I just follow up?
In the airports themselves, can we provide incentives to
help? Can the airports themselves provide incentives for
greater utilization? How can this committee intervene in doing
that?
Mr. Barclay. A number of smaller airports or airports
within reach of competition from major airports have actually
gone into marketing agreements with airlines to help advertise
the services and those kind of incentives.
I do not know that there has been any kind of set subsidies
or anything like that except in some very small communities to
get just one or two flights. There have been a few examples of
those, but the problem is just the scope of the economics,
trying to get in to change behavior, and this way is very, very
expensive and beyond the reach of most local communities.
Mr. Pastor. Is there an incentive for the airlines that we
might pursue?
Mr. Merlis. I think the issue you differentiated from the
Chairman, who raised the issue of hubs, and you were using the
example of spokes. Burbank, Los Angeles, Ontario are spokes. I
think it does indicate that is an area that both of them ought
to be explored, but it may be less complex to do it at the
spokes than it is in the hubs.
In response to your question, Mr. Chairman, about how much
originating traffic, during the break I found those numbers
out. I was not aware of this, but in Pittsburgh 64 percent of
the traffic originates and ends in Pittsburgh. In Atlanta it is
62.6, so even the whole hub is a lot of people who would then
have to go from--well, they would not have to go from
Pittsburgh to a different hub. They still have originating
traffic, but it is a bigger deal than to find incentives to get
people who want to go to Los Angeles to fly to Burbank instead
or to Ontario.
Whether that could be done through landing fees, which are
not a large component--they are about five percent--or other
kinds of incentives, is worth exploring.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
LOCAL AIRLINE TRAFFIC
Mr. Rogers. On your Pittsburgh and Atlanta figures, 60
percent of Pittsburgh is what?
Mr. Merlis. Sixty-four. This is from Aviation Daily on
March 7. Sixty-four point nine percent of the traffic at
Pittsburgh either begins there or ends there. It does not
connect.
Mr. Rogers. The question is passengers.
Mr. Merlis. Passengers. Excuse me. Of the passengers. I
used the word----
Mr. Rogers. Are you telling me that 64 percent of the
passengers that fly out of Pittsburgh are Pittsburgh area
people rather than us people that fly through Pittsburgh, the
major hub?
Mr. Merlis. They are either Pittsburgh area people or,
alternatively, they are ending their trip in Pittsburgh because
they are going there for business exclusively. It is
passengers. I should not have said traffic. I should have said
passengers. It is 64.9 percent of Pittsburgh's passengers are
originating or destined to Pittsburgh, not passing through to
some other location. In Atlanta it was 62.6 percent.
Mr. Rogers. I do not believe it.
Mr. Merlis. It is not my data, so I cannot take pride of
authorship. This comes from the O & D survey data and T-100,
filings with the DOT, and has been computed by Aviation Daily.
CHOKE POINTS
Mr. Rogers. It is beyond belief. Anyway, we will leave that
for another time.
The so-called seven choke points that are causing I think
by unanimous agreement most of the delays and cancellations and
all of that, those choke points are really the creation of the
airlines. They are the ones who are choosing to use those hubs
as their hub.
Adding more runways, it seems to me, would require adding
more gates, which in turn requires bigger terminals and all of
the infrastructure that is associated with that. We are talking
really long-term solutions here, but I hasten to add a second
time there is airport capacity beyond belief out there that
could alleviate our problem overnight but for the decisions,
whether it be economic or otherwise, of the airlines to choose
to just fly into and out of those seven major hubs. Is that
right or wrong?
Mr. Merlis. You are correct, sir.
Mr. Rogers. So what are you going to do about it?
Mr. Merlis. Well, let me address the choke points because
choke points are twofold. One is sectors in the air traffic
control system, not airports, and the other is airports.
With respect to the sectors in the air traffic control
system, we have been working with the FAA and the controllers
in trying to resectorize, and perhaps a controller should
explain the language rather than I, in order to increase the
capacity through these bottlenecks so that traffic moving east
to west and west to east through these points, which are east
of Chicago principally related, I think, to the Cleveland
Center--is that correct--can accommodate more planes. That
should have a lot to do with those delays, though it does not
have a lot to do with those places where additional concrete is
needed.
I think where additional landing capacity is needed,
carriers are exploring alternatives, as I mentioned earlier,
moving their traffic through a wider part of the day so that
you do not peak as much in let us say the 10 hours between 7:00
a.m. and 5:00 p.m. If you can move some of it a little earlier
and some of it a little later, then what you do is you smooth
out some of those peaks. Carriers have been exploring that.
As I mentioned, Delta has actually embarked upon doing
that. I think as of April 1 in Atlanta it is going to do that,
and other carriers are currently in that exploration right now.
AIRLINE MONOPOLY
Mr. Rogers. Are any of the airlines considering subhubbing,
creating more hubs?
Mr. Merlis. I am not aware. They may be, but that is the
kind of business plan that more often than not I find out about
when it shows up in print. They do not share that with the
trade association.
Mr. Rogers. I want to get back to this when it comes my
turn again and have you discuss with us the question of
competition, the question of whether or not airlines in effect
are monopolizing in regions of the country to the practical
exclusion of all other competition. I will save that for
another round.
Mrs. Emerson?
international delays
Mrs. Emerson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the
opportunity of serving on this subcommittee as one of the two
newest Members. I also look forward to working with all of you.
This is a real general question and one that strikes me as
perhaps being applicable. What about airports, other airports
around the world, those of comparable size to our major choke
points, if you will, or the larger airports? Do they have
similar types of delays?
Mr. Merlis. If I can address that? Yes. They are far worse
in most countries. One of the ways they handle it is by
managing demand.
In the United States, in the deregulated environment what
we try to do is encourage people to travel by air, and the
competitive marketplace has resulted in more people traveling.
In other countries there are slot limits at each individual
airport in some cities or some countries, and so the pool of
planes that can land is very limited.
In some of them, I think Malpensa in Milan, 50 percent of
the flights are delayed, so some places are far worse. I think
most places are far worse than the United States.
Mr. Woerth. If I can testify as somebody who has flown
every region of the world? As bad as we think the United States
is right now, this is dream land compared to Europe. Europe is
a terrible place.
Almost 22 different air traffic control centers are trying
to make Euro Control to make it one thing, but the delays and
limits in Europe and the restrictions are very much worse than
here in the United States. We do not ever want to get to be
like Europe. I can appreciate that very much.
Ms. Garvey. Congresswoman, we had a recent visit from the
European countries to the Command Center to see how we manage
it here. I think, and this is really to the controllers'
credit, we still control about 50 percent of the world's
traffic in this country, so it is an extraordinary challenge
that we have.
definition of delays
Mrs. Emerson. Quite frankly, my major flying overseas is
from here to there and not within or on the continent or
whatever. That is very interesting.
Let me just switch to, and I appreciate your answers. Let
me ask you all why there seem to be so many different standards
in determining if a flight is going to be delayed or not.
I was interested in reading the Subcommittee on Aviation
hearing transcript or overview from last year. I cannot make
head nor tails out of, you know, why, you know, the airlines
say one thing, the FAA says something else, you know, and air
traffic controllers say something else. I mean, why are there
so many different standards?
Mr. Mead. A couple of us may want to take a shot at that.
Last September we testified on this because we were doing a
job with Congress and the Secretary on delays. We were trying
to quantify the delays, a very, you would think, kind of basic
task since everybody is complaining about them.
As a second order request, we wanted to identify: what are
the causes? We found out that there are different systems for
keeping track of things. The airlines keep track. The airlines
internally individually keep track of their delays and what
they believe are the causes. The Federal Aviation
Administration has a system where they keep track of delays
once a plane is under their control. The Bureau of
Transportation Statistics, which is part of the Department of
Transportation, also keeps statistics on delays, but that
information is without assigned causes. In other words, it does
not keep causal data.
We recommend that there be a unitary system. I think the
committees in both the House and Senate thought likewise, and
so, too, did the Secretary of Transportation. A task force was
convened and they came up with a set of recommendations on how
to fix it.
Those recommendations have not been satisfactorily
addressed. Indeed----
Mrs. Emerson. By whom?
Mr. Mead. By the Department of Transportation, by the FAA
or the airlines.
Mrs. Emerson. Why?
Mr. Mead. Because, among other things, the last
Administration made the recommendation in its closing weeks,
and the issue was left for this Administration.
Frankly, if you asked me under oath to say who is
accountable or responsible for doing it, I could not tell you.
I know this is of concern to the Secretary. Beyond that, I
cannot give you assurances.
I do want to say, though, to show you just for the record
how absurd this is in my statement. ``Under current rules, you
can leave the gate within 15 minutes of scheduled departure and
then wait on the runway for three hours and be considered on
time by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but late by
FAA,'' because the airplane was under their control so they
count it.
``Conversely, you can wait at the gate for three hours past
scheduled takeoff time and take off within 15 minutes of
backing away from the gate, and FAA will say you are on time.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics will say you are
late.''
One other example--just to hammer home the importance of
this point. On March 9, Aviation Daily, which is a trade
publication, using data from FAA, reported there were 1,900-odd
more delays in January, 2001, than in January, 2000. That same
day, the Washington Post, using Bureau of Transportation
Statistics data, reports that the percentage of flights
arriving on time had improved over the identical time period.
This is an absurd situation, and I think it could be
corrected and has to be corrected if we are going to
analytically get to the bottom of the problem. That is my
speech for the day.
definition of delays
Mrs. Emerson. Yes. I would be interested because, I mean,
of all things this is the one thing that does not take a rocket
scientist to figure out how to make it uniform. I mean, that is
easy in my opinion. I mean, some of the other things require
lots of money. This does not require a whole bunch of money to
fix it. Anyway, I am curious to hear what the administrator----
Ms. Garvey. Thank you very much, Congresswoman. I will just
comment on three points. First, just to step back for a minute,
Mr. Mead is absolutely right when he says the FAA collects data
for the period of time when the plane is under our domain. So
to speak, and that is really to understand the performance of
the system better and do something about it, we have really
focused on that piece of it.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, as Mr. Mead has
said, has focused more on data that has come from the airlines
about on-time arrival and delays and lost baggage, et cetera,
so we are really two parts of a whole.
From a customer's point of view, though, you are absolutely
right. You want a standard that makes sense. You want a
standard that is uniform. Absolute agreement on that.
Mr. Mead talked about the task force that was put together
in the last minutes of the last Administration. They did some
work, some initial work. I think this Secretary--in fact I know
this Secretary--is very, very eager to get back to those
recommendations, and is putting his team in place. I know it is
going to be headed by an Assistant Secretary that will really
jump start the process.
I do not, though, want to leave anyone with the impression
that we are not taking that seriously. In the meantime, until
the task force really gets underway, both the airlines and the
FAA have been working for about a year to establish a common
set of metrics. We have them in six categories. We are
collecting them from 13 airlines now at about 20 airports. We
will be at 30 by the end of this month. It is, I think,
definitely a step in the right direction. We want that task
force to take a look at that when they are back underway to see
if that is a common ground that we can arrive at. I think you
are absolutely right. We want to make sure that we have a
standard that is understood by the customer who is really being
served.
Mrs. Emerson. Does anyone else want to comment on that
particular question?
Mr. Woerth. I would just say that you are right. It is
almost like the rest of our information--we cannot analyze and
agree on a solution if we cannot agree on what the facts are.
If we are going to argue over if we were late or we were early
or on time, we really need to be on the same database and agree
with what that is before we can make any good decisions.
public service
Mrs. Emerson. I agree. It is kind of like the Health Care
Financing Administration trying to fix medicare. I mean, that
is a little more complicated. There are certain sets of data
here, and we all know what it is.
You know, I missed seeing the Dateline TV show the other
day, but I did actually read the transcript of it. I am a
little confused about how Dateline, and this probably, Mr.
Merlis, would go to you. I am confused how Dateline could
figure out more than two hours early that a plane was going to
be delayed, and yet the public is only notified a short period
of time in advance, or the people working at the gate are
notified a little bit, you know, later or quite a bit later.
Why not just tell the public earlier when you all know? If
a plane has not taken off from New York and yet it is supposed
to be in D.C., for example, I mean, why not just tell us?
Mr. Merlis. I think that is a goal we have. It is a very
complex, ironically, issue because our computer reservation
systems are not tied into that data. Carriers are committed to
getting better data out to their customers by creating the
links so that when a dispatcher knows a flight is late or
whatever the time for the flight is it will get put into that.
It should not be left out. It should be included, and that is
one of the things that we, as we move forward with our customer
service program, intend to do.
Mrs. Emerson. Well, excuse me. Maybe I did not articulate
that right.
If I am at the airport and there is something on the board
that says the plane is delayed 15 minutes, or let us just say
it is on time and it is half an hour before the flight is
taking off, but yet the plane has not even left from New York
or from St. Louis, which is generally where I fly back and
forth to every week. You know, obviously somebody knows.
Mr. Merlis. You are correct.
Mrs. Emerson. But yet the people at the point where I am
supposed to be departing from either do not know that, are not
told. I mean, why try to pull the wool over our eyes? I mean, I
would be a lot happier if I simply knew what the real story
was.
You know, it is that, and then all of a sudden, you know, I
am delayed going to St. Louis because of weather. I am talking
to my husband in St. Louis. He says well, it is sunny here. We
are ten minutes from the airport. The plane is sitting in D.C.
I mean, I guess I have to ask why? You know, why is it so
difficult to just tell us the real skinny?
Mr. Merlis. I think there are two pieces. There are two
pieces.
Mrs. Emerson. Okay.
Mr. Merlis. One, we can do a better job. We are committed
to doing a better job, but it cannot be done overnight. We have
to put links together to link the flights and the information
that we have from our dispatchers into the computer reservation
systems. It has not been done yet. It ought to be done, and
people are committed to do it.
Mr. Rogers. Why has it not been done?
Mr. Merlis. Because it was not the highest priority it
should have been.
Mr. Rogers. I know that. The highest priority of the
airlines is profit, not service to the public.
How soon will you have this information in your computers
so that the public, the traveling public, who paid the good
money can have that information?
Mr. Merlis. I do not have the answer, but I will get it for
you.
Mr. Rogers. How soon will you have the answer?
Mr. Merlis. I will try to get it by the end of the week.
Mr. Rogers. No. That is not satisfactory. By the end of the
day.
Mr. Merlis. I will try to get it by the end of the day.
Mr. Rogers. You will not try. You will get it by the end of
the day. By close of business today, I want the answer.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
collection of delay data
Mr. Rogers. The gentlelady has raised a very, very
important question.
The airlines, by my information, according to the IG in
fact, Mr. Mead, the FAA does not collect data on delays due to
air carrier activities such as aircraft equipment failure, late
aircraft or flight crew, fueling delay, late boarding of
passengers, meals or baggage, but the airlines do keep that
data. Is that right?
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Why is that information not available to the
FAA?
Mr. Merlis. I do not know if it has been requested.
Mr. Rogers. Has it been requested, madam?
Ms. Garvey. Actually, I think generally it is through the
Department of Transportation. Is that correct, Ken?
Mr. Rogers. Has the information been requested of the
airlines, Mr. Mead?
Mr. Mead. This was what I just was referring to, Mr.
Chairman, where in the last Administration they recommended
that that type of information be provided and meshed with the
FAA information, and that still has not been implemented.
Mr. Rogers. Why?
Mr. Mead. With all respect, sir, I do not know who is in
charge of this particular responsibility. It was a task force
operation. Those people left, and now somebody needs to be put
in charge.
Mr. Rogers. Where?
Mr. Mead. I would say in the Office of the Secretary--at
the Office of the Secretary level.
Mr. Rogers. Why not FAA?
Mr. Mead. Well, because, by law, collection of delay
information from the airlines is vested in the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics, which is separate from FAA.
It could be placed in FAA, but I think it would require
somebody at the Secretary's level to say this is how it is
going to be done because you have two different agencies
involved.
Mrs. Emerson. Can I ask one more follow up question to
yours, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
TIME FRAME FOR DELAY STANDARDIZED SYSTEM
Mrs. Emerson. Mr. Mead and Administrator Garvey, let us say
this task force is working, and it is set up under the
Secretary in the Secretary's office. How long would it take
once we have it operational?
Now, granted, let us just say everybody is in place, so we
will start from that point in time. How long would it take to
figure out a standardized system with all of the agencies
involved, as well as the airlines and everybody else? How long
do you think it would take to put in place a standardized
system?
Mr. Mead. I think if the airlines were all to cooperate,
you could have the design of the system done in about two or
three weeks. I would allow probably a month or two to implement
it. I think the basic information sets are out there already.
FAA, as Administrator Garvey was saying, for FAA's part, I
think they have moved the envelope forward, and now the airline
data need to be meshed in with it. In other words, delays that
are the responsibility of FAA, I think they are collecting that
information.
Mrs. Emerson. And then the airlines I assume would be
willing also to provide that data so you could all put it
together. That way, you know, once we have it and it is
standardized, at least then you do not always have to be the
bad guy.
Mr. Mead. With due respect, that assumption about what the
airlines would be prepared to do is not one that I would be
prepared to vouch for.
Mrs. Emerson. Mr. Merlis?
Mr. Merlis. We have been participating in that advisory
committee. I think ultimately the recommendations that advisory
committee comes out with we are going to implement.
I mean, it has been a collaborative process, and I think it
has worked. It is just that no one wants to unilaterally put
out data and still have these two other data sets, and another
carrier does not put out the same data because there is no
standard. We will do whatever is required.
Mrs. Emerson. Okay. Let us say we will give you a little
extra time. Two months from the inception? You think that would
be long enough to certainly standardize three or four different
sets of data, correct?
Mr. Mead. Yes, at least with three or four carriers.
Mrs. Emerson. Okay.
Mr. Mead. Big carriers.
Mrs. Emerson. Okay. I appreciate that.
Mr. Mead. Yes. Thank you for your line of questioning.
Mrs. Emerson. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. Look, you were talking about this in 1993, the
airlines and FAA, and we are still talking about it. Time is
up. This afternoon before close of business.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. If the task force will not do it, we have a
task force right here, I guess.
That would be a major step forward, in my opinion. Do you
agree with that?
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Is that satisfactory?
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Ms. Garvey, you are going to be back up
here in a couple of weeks to testify?
Ms. Garvey. I am, Mr. Chairman, yes.
DEFINITION OF DELAY
Mr. Rogers. That would be a perfect time for you to have
for us a definition of a delay. That is plenty of time, is it
not?
Ms. Garvey. I could probably give you at least our
definition probably before then, but yes. I mean, you are
talking about the agreement with the airlines?
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
Ms. Garvey. We certainly will be able to do our part.
Mr. Rogers. Well, the goal of the airlines is to provide
the information and mesh that into the computers so that we are
all sharing information.
Ms. Garvey. And, Mr. Chairman, part of the work of the task
force is again determining this definition of what is a delay
and what the standard is.
Mr. Rogers. Yes, but the task force time is up. When you
testify here in two weeks, I want a definition of a delay. If
it is not agreeable to everybody, then that is too bad because
it is going to be defined.
If we have to define it in this bill, the Appropriations
bill this year, I have no problem with that. Task force/mask
force in this case.
Ms. Kilpatrick?
PARTNERSHIP
Ms. Kilpatrick. I love this, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and thank you for framing at 10:00, almost two and a
half hours ago, what this hearing would be about so that we
would not get totally smoked.
At the table are the people who are responsible for almost
700,000,000 people a year using our aviation system. Sitting
here now two and a half hours later, though you look like you
work together it is very clear to me you do not. There is
competition and finger pointing and all of that, and I think
the Chairman said at the onset he was not even going to deal
with that. You all accepted the responsibility. There is a
problem. Let us try to change it and fix it.
I visited VOLPE the Tech Center last year and, among other
things, went into one of their rooms where they have this big
visual and dots of the United States map. This shows where
planes leave and take off all day long, and they know when a
plane is there on time and when it is not and how late it is
going to be by the dots in the communication system that they
have.
What I hear this morning has no connection to what the
airlines know or do. I think Congresswoman Emerson is right on
point in terms of you know when there is a delay. Why do you
not tell the 700,000,000 of us so we do not all get hyper and
mad? They call it road rage in a truck. I think it is air rage.
Then they come home and beat their wives or hit their kids up
side the head.
It is a way to fix it, and I am not sure, Chairman Rogers,
who has been spending these last couple hours, that you all got
the message. I think you got it. It has to be a partnership.
Policy is always better when the parties come together and tell
us what you need rather than letting us tell you what you need.
I am hopeful that as we leave here today and as we move forward
that all the pieces will begin to work together.
Ms. Garvey, you hit it right on point in doing my briefing
for this. Why is it different, their figures different, first
of all, and then how do you compute it? You know, the people we
represent and all 535 of us, and my ticket is $500 plus a week.
We pay big money.
You are in for profit, and we want you to stay in for
profit. We want you to employ and train other people and our
constituents so that they can take care of their families, but
I had not felt, and maybe the Chairman in the last 15 minutes
has made an appeal here. I do not feel the urgency from the
operators of the system that you are going to work on this
together and work it out.
By business today? Now, that is a mandate. That is pretty
quick. You said yes, sir, you are going to take care of that.
Hopefully you will, but, you know, as a Member of the
subcommittee and one who flies twice a week, as do most of us
500 plus people, the problems are severe, but they are not too
complicated to fix.
The IG was here last week, Mr. Mead, telling us distinctly
what the problems are in the industry. Most of our constituents
and us, we feel it as we take the service, so safety is the
number one issue for us. Profit and safety has to be for you.
The pilots association, the airports--we have a couple of
airports in our district--the hubs, the subhubs. Why can some
of that not be changed? Profit is obviously a motive, but how
do you work to make that change, to make the 700,000,000 who
use the service?
Wait. If I can save $100 and fly 20 miles away I might do
that with the proper kind of public relations effort on it.
There are ways to fix it without just doing the concrete. The
concrete is a long way out and certainly needed. We also need
additional people, Mr. Air Traffic Controller.
Mr. Carr. Yes.
AIR TRAFFIC CONGESTION
Ms. Kilpatrick. This is the Committee that can give them to
you, but you have to say that and ask for what you want. Some
things we can do right away. Other things we cannot.
I am not sure that as a group those of you who are the
heads of the airports and the airlines and the pilots who fly
and the controllers who keep us safe, and, Ms. Garvey, you are
just overall. Mr. Mead, you are the guy. You can be called
that. Do your job. That is all we are asking. Safety. Profit.
We want you to do that.
We were told last week that the airlines really have very
little to do with what comes in and out. How can we flood
LaGuardia and then at the same time, you know, you do not have
to check with anybody? You just put ten more flights in. They
are going up.
I tried to get to LaGuardia last week. I could not get
there on an 8:00 flight. Hey, we could not get in. We sat for
two hours. They opened the door, and I got out before. I was in
Detroit. I left. There is a better way to do it. Mr. Chairman,
so many questions have been already asked. I just say ditto to
all of that.
As the air traffic control gentleman said earlier, Mr.
Carr, aviation is one part of the mass transit system that we
have in our country, and if England is worse than ours God help
them because the good thing about your industry is there have
not been any major tragedies, and we commend you for that, but
there are tragedies waiting to happen with the number of
incursions we hear about.
The profit/loss has got to be a thing of the past. You
know, people have to get from Point A to B. Aviation is
probably the best way to get there. That it is safe, convenient
and affordable is what we hope that you will make it.
Mr. Chairman, I do not really have a question. If VOLPE
Center knows in the morning what is going to be late at 5:00,
then you all ought to know it, too. But, more than that, so
should our constituents.
Thank you for your strength, Mr. Chairman, and hold them to
their word, please. Thank you.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Sweeney?
AIRLINE PROFIT, COMPETITION, HUBS
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start by
saying hello to all of our witnesses who have testified in one
capacity or the other in the past when I served on the
authorizing side as Vice-Chairman of Aviation.
Let me commend you, Mr. Chairman, for not just conducting
this hearing, but setting a tenor and a tone that I think is
long overdue. I am proud to be here. I made the right decision.
I am very happy.
Let me also say my name is Sweeney. In a couple days it is
kind of an important day for my family. I am supposed to be
sitting at a dinner right now with the President and the Prime
Minister of Ireland. I am here because this is critical, and it
is important.
Mr. Merlis, I have to tell you. They talk about air rage.
This is one Member of Congress, and I think you have heard it
from many others. That rage is real and witnessed by many of
us, so I want to start my questioning by focusing very
specifically on what I think is the complicity of the airlines
in all of this. I am going to start with a series of facts. You
stop me if you do not think any of these are accurate.
Fact. Airlines use hub airports to maximize economies of
scale.
Mr. Merlis. Yes.
Mr. Sweeney. Airlines work hard to push more passengers
through their hubs to maximize profits?
Mr. Merlis. Correct.
Mr. Sweeney. The major airlines do not compete against each
other's hubs?
Mr. Merlis. No. They do.
Mr. Sweeney. In what instances?
Mr. Merlis. When you say they do not compete against each
other's hubs, you can go over different hubs to get to the same
destination. Is that what you mean?
Mr. Sweeney. No. I mean in direct competition. Scheduling
of flights and diversifying those.
Mr. Merlis. I think there is competition.
RUNWAY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Sweeney. We disagree on that.
Fact. Hubs are a tool of market domination and profit
centers for the airlines as evidenced by how difficult it is
for low fare carriers to gain access, as evidenced by the fact
that many of the major airlines hold onto slots allocated to
them and do not use them to their maximum capacity?
Fact. Hub airport operators say that to reduce delays at
airports, and we have already gone through this, additional
runways are needed. We have heard a lot of questioning from the
committee on the utility of that.
Fact. Once an additional runway is built, the major airline
will probably add more flights to the airport. This will
maximize the economies of scale and grow their profit. The fact
that the airport fills up, we are probably going to be asked at
some point in the future for more funding for more runways.
The fundamental question to you, Mr. Merlis, and, more
specifically, to Administrator Garvey and maybe Inspector
General Mead, is what have we done thus far? That is the
question Mr. Chairman was asking. Is there anything you have
not told us in terms of planning and development that is
already underway?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I did not speak, Congressman, a little
bit earlier about the technology. I know I have appeared before
you before in other committees and talked about a building
block approach in getting out technology as aggressively as we
can. I think there are enormous challenges in that,
particularly with some of the satellite navigation pieces. I
think staying the course on technology over the next several
years is going to be critical, staying the course on a building
block approach. We are focused now on our terminal areas, and
we just have to get it done. That is a piece we did not talk
about a little bit earlier.
STEWART AIRPORT
Mr. Sweeney. How much work has the FAA or the DOT been able
to do on looking at the viable alternatives that exist in
airports other than LaGuardia like Stewart and Islip?
Ms. Garvey. Actually, again with a lot of help from
Congress we had the pilot program on the public/private
partnerships in airports, and Stewart is one of those. I do
think that when you look at the increased funding that this
committee has provided for some of the smaller and mid size
airports, I think that is a step in the right direction.
I think someone mentioned earlier, and it may have been
Captain Woerth, that there is this idea about are there other
incentives. I do not know the answer to that, but I think it is
the right question. Are there additional incentives we can put
in place or we can think of putting in place to encourage the
use of some of those airports?
I know LaGuardia and the Port Authority have been looking
at some of the ground transportation, for example, around JFK
because certainly one of the issues is getting from JFK to
downtown. Sometimes the incentives may even be on the ground
side, as well as on the air side.
AIRLINE SCHEDULES
Mr. Sweeney. I would like to work with you especially as it
relates to Stewart. As you know, it services the southern part
of my district. I would like to look at the development plans
and alternatives.
Let me go to the delay question, Mr. Merlis, more
specifically. A recent report showed that 62 flights were
scheduled to depart O'Hare between 7:00 and 7:15 p.m., but even
if flying conditions were perfect only about half of those
flights would actually be able to take off in that period on
time.
It is simple math, sir. The question is why are the
airlines scheduling so many flights? Not only are they not
notifying the public of when they know of delays, but they are
actually scheduling in advance. It seems premeditated.
Mr. Merlis. I think that the airlines cannot talk to one
another to divvy that up, and it is very rare that you will
find one airline schedules in a block of time in excess of the
capacity at the block of time, but collectively they do.
They cannot talk to one another, and also I think they fear
that if one carrier drops out some of those flights another
carrier will come in and fill those flights--not those flights,
but those times--thus resulting in the same congestion that you
had before, but the carrier who dropped out not being able to
get any revenue out of it.
Mr. Sweeney. So would a system in which we attempt to
redistribute slots in some way, thereby developing some
methodology to evaluate the effectiveness and the efficiency of
what the airlines is doing, not make some sense?
Mr. Merlis. Well, I think that is sort of what the lottery
that took place at LaGuardia was attempting to do. Yes.
Mr. Sweeney. I am talking about something longer term.
Mr. Merlis. I think that longer term the goal would be to
increase capacity, not to manage the demand. Short-term clearly
there are demand management initiatives which the FAA has
undertaken, but long term what we should try to do is meet the
demand.
AIRLINE CUSTOMER SERVICE
Mr. Sweeney. Let me just conclude. There are a number of
very good pieces of legislation out there. Last year the last
term of Congress, faced with enormous numbers of consumer
complaints, and as Chairman Rogers aptly pointed out, the
airlines seemingly--they are in the business for profit really
at the expense both literally and figuratively of their
customers.
The airlines entered into some agreements saying that they
would move their customer service process forward. Inspector
General Mead did a very good report that indicated that that
progress was very, very slow, which has motivated many of us to
reintroduce pieces of legislation and, frankly, much tougher
pieces of legislation.
I think you can tell by the leadership being provided here
today by the Chairman that Congress is very serious about this
issue and very serious this term of Congress, so I would
implore you to tell your constituents to pay attention. It is
very real. The complaints and concerns are very real out there.
Mr. Merlis. If I may respond, sir?
Mr. Sweeney. Sure.
Mr. Merlis. I think we did make progress. As the Inspector
General's report showed, nine out of the 12 categories he
graded us in an A to B. There are three which we clearly failed
to get up to the level we should, and we intend to do that. We
also have identified some other areas that the Inspector
General recommended, and we are going to pursue those because
we know we have to get better.
Mr. Sweeney. If I can, in your response you fundamentally
did not deal with the root cause of delays in the process. The
airlines avoided that issue throughout. My example at O'Hare is
just one of a number that we could provide for you, so more is
required.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DELAYS
Mr. Mead. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
Mr. Mead. You inquired of the three of us if there was
something we had left out, and there was something I left out
when the Chairman said, what actions do you deem need to be
taken. My recollection of what I said is that I did leave one
item out.
I do not think it is unreasonable for the airlines to tell
people at the time they are booking their ticket that the
flight they are about to book is canceled a significant
percentage of the time or is delayed 40 percent or more of the
time.
That is not necessarily a positive incentive that some of
the Members have been asking for, but it is an incentive, and
it seems to me a fair way of doing business. If you are going
to be reasonably free to do the scheduling, then you tell
people ahead of time before they make the financial commitment
to fly at that time.
Mr. Sweeney. My question then, Mr. Mead, is what standard
are we going to use to define what a delay is, and how do we
notify the customer of what that is?
Mr. Rogers. Well, we are going to solve in a couple of
weeks.
Ms. Garvey. I am working on it now. I will tell you.
HUB COMPETITION
Mr. Rogers. We already have that one down. Thank you, Mr.
Sweeney. The new Member of the subcommittee is a very valuable
addition, and we are delighted to have you.
The meshing of the computers I think would solve a lot of
the difficulties, Mr. Sweeney, as mentioned in terms of
forewarning the traveler about an impending problem. I do not
want to be personal here, but let me give you a small example
of some time ago, not too long ago, I took a commuter from
Lexington to Pittsburgh, there to transfer to a flight directly
to Washington.
No one told us in Lexington that there was a problem with
the connector flight that would leave out of Pittsburgh, but
that flight, because of weather in Orlando, had not yet taken
off, nor was it going to take off for several hours, so when we
got to Pittsburgh the connector plane was still in Orlando. It
would have been a real easy, simple thing for the Lexington
terminal to say look, do not take that flight because you
cannot connect. That is a simple thing.
If you were in real competition, if there was any real
competition at that airport, you would be more aggressive in
trying to please me and fellow travelers like me. Therefore, I
want to get to the competition question here.
Mr. Mead, I think maybe you have some thoughts about
whether or not there is effective competition particularly in
the hub areas and their feeder areas.
Mr. Mead. That one catches me a bit off guard. It is not
what we would like to see.
Is there effective competition? I think it depends on your
definition. I do not want to be too loose with this, but I
think it depends on what market you are looking at. There is
clearly less competition today than there has been. There is a
lot of concern about the effect that these mergers will have.
Certainly when you have dominance at a hub, that dominant
carrier can control a lot about the prices, particularly when
it has to do with you going to the spokes. That is why you see
fares going to the spokes that are substantially greater than
on the routes that there is competition, which are sometimes
five or six times longer in distance.
For example, if you fly from here to Los Angeles, there are
several hubs you cross over, and you do not care what hub you
go to. The airlines know that, and that is why the prices to
Los Angeles if you booked in advance are much more competitive
than a trip from here, for example, to Columbia, South
Carolina.
I am not familiar with the routing to your home state. I
can probably draw another analogy to that, and it is, you said,
$500. I believe that. Senator Hollings probably can beat you
out on the fare to Charleston. It is the same type of issue.
Mr. Rogers. I guess my question dealt not so much with the
price of the ticket, although that is a huge consideration, but
I guess I am thinking more of just the efforts of the airline
to please people, to sell themselves to the public, to be
accommodating.
Mr. Mead. Oh yes. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. I mean, there is an arrogance. I have to say
this. There is an arrogance that we encounter on these
airlines, an attitude of I do not care. Either fly with us or
you do not fly, so take that and shove it up whatever.
That is the attitude that we encounter, and it is not just
that we are trying to report on what our constituents are
hearing or saying, although that is a big part of it. It is
what we have all experienced ourselves. There is an arrogance
that you would not find if there was a competitive carrier
saying hey, if you do not like them come with us. We will serve
you this. We will do that for you.
Mr. Mead. I misunderstood your question, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Yes. Now that you understand it, what do you
say?
Mr. Mead. Yes. I say absolutely, although I would hasten to
add since we did that customer work on the report we issued
very recently, I have to say that Congress has gotten the
attention of the airlines. I have had CEOs of at least four
carriers tell me that things had gotten way out of balance in
their attitudes towards customers.
When the carriers entered into those voluntary commitments,
they did so because they saw the threat of legislation. I think
they are taking customer service a lot more seriously today,
but I think these messages need to be reinforced.
Mr. Sweeney had it quite right that the results of our
review show that there was real progress by the airlines in all
the areas they made commitments on except when it came to the
fundamental reasons people are dissatisfied, which are delays,
cancellations, and baggage not showing up on time.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I just want the world to know that this
subcommittee is not going to go away. We are going to be here,
and we are going to be here, and we are going to be here. We
are going to check on, and we are going to insist upon, and we
are going to do whatever is necessary.
There is a storm brewing, my friends, and we will not rest
until it eases up. Our constituents are demanding it. We have
no choice. You can make it easy, or you can make it hard. If
you make it hard, you require hard answers from the Congress,
we are prepared to do that. I will do it either way. Be nice or
be mean, but until we get some response I am going to be mean.
There we are.
Now, we need to close down here. We are past your lunch
hour, but we do have one final thing we need to attend to, and
that is your five things that you are going to do to solve our
problem.
MINNEAPOLIS AND DETROIT AIRPORTS
Mr. Sabo. Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question?
Mr. Rogers. Please.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just sitting
looking at some data on size of airports in terms of passengers
and landings and takeoffs. I looked at my own, and I discovered
Minneapolis is larger than I expected. In terms of domestic
airports, it is seventh both in terms of total passengers
enplaned/deplaned and seventh in terms of landings and
takeoffs, but we are not on the list of ten airports with the
most arrival delays and cancellations. Detroit is roughly
equivalent to us in both of those categories, and they are not
on the list.
I do not know that our weather is better than the rest of
the country. We tend to have winter storms. I look at in the
listing of airports I have is of the 30 largest
internationally. LaGuardia is not on the list of the 30 largest
airports--this is from 1999--in terms of either passengers or
landings, and I gather lots of problems generate there. I am
just curious why. If both Detroit and Minneapolis are
northwest, are they doing a better job with the airplanes? Is
our weather better?
Mr. Merlis. If I may, sir?
Mr. Sabo. Yes.
Mr. Merlis. One of the issues may be related to the
discussion about Cleveland Center and the choke points. One of
the issues may be that there are not as many markets served out
of Minneapolis to the east as they are west. As a result, and I
just have a list of the top 20, Seattle is the second largest,
Los Angeles the third largest, San Francisco the fourth
largest, and Phoenix the fifth largest served out of
Minneapolis, so it may be just the volume of aircraft into and
out of Minneapolis is not passing through that choke point, the
eastern choke point. That is only part of the answer, but that
alone could explain some of it.
Ms. Garvey. Congressman?
Mr. Sabo. But I keep hearing lots of delays and
cancellations are due to weather. That is the number one
reason.
Ms. Garvey. I might add just maybe one or two other points.
One is that the sectors that we are opening up that John talked
about a little bit earlier, one is in that area so we do have
some new airspace. I again credit the Department of Defense,
who worked very closely with us.
I will tell you, Northwest, to their credit, has played
full out in the spring/summer plan. They are hooking in every
day at the Command Center and really I think taking advantage.
Not to single them out because there are a number of airlines
that have done that as well, but I think if you ask them they
would say that collaborating in that way has made a difference.
Richard Anderson has said that directly to us; that he thinks
that really helped their delay numbers last year.
Mr. Mead. Well, another factor here is that, at the two
airports you have mentioned, Northwest is an extremely dominant
carrier. Therefore, they have greater control over the
scheduling of those facilities.
I would also say Minneapolis ended up 17 on the list, and
Detroit ended up as number 13. I think our testimony just had
the top ten. I wanted you to know what those two airports did.
CHOKE POINTS
Mr. Sabo. But it just strikes me. So the choke points are
fundamentally an east problem, although I see Phoenix, L.A.,
San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas are on this list.
Ms. Garvey. The choke points, Congressman, are principally
from the Chicago to the Washington-Boston area. That is not to
say that we do not have delays and difficulties at some of
those local airports that you mentioned as well. Those are also
very crowded airspaces, and those areas we are focusing on as
well.
Last year we said where are the biggest problems? Where are
we having the most difficulty? That was in spring/summer 2000,
and that is what really focused us on that triangle.
Mr. Sabo. But somewhere did we not hear that weather was 70
percent of the problem?
Mr. Carr. Well, The air waves that the choke points deal
with are identical to a highway map. Most of the congestion is
east of the Mississippi. If you look at a map of the interstate
highway system, once you get east of the Mississippi River it
is just a spaghetti bowl. West, in the western states, where
you not only have larger land to work with, you have fewer
highways. The congestion is not as dense.
It is identical in the air above our heads. I will even
widen the triangle to include from Chicago to Washington, D.C.,
to Miami. If you want to really have a Bermuda Triangle of
airplane difficulty, that would be how big I would draw it
because there are sectors down over Atlanta that are impacted
by what we call choke points.
Choke points are nothing more than the funneling of
numerous streams of aircraft into a single stream for the next
controller or the next facility because while you can have
almost an infinite number of streams of airplanes heading
towards Atlanta, eventually you have to reduce those streams
from 20 to ten to six to four to two to however many runways
they are landing on. That creates bottlenecks. It creates choke
points during peak periods.
What we are working with the agency on collaboratively is
identifying where those choke points exist and mitigating the
impact by redesigning the airspace. Airspace is nothing more
than similar to a wedding cake, actually. It just depends on
how many layers you have control over. We are going to stratify
those layers to allow for more controllers to work a more
finite piece of airspace and try to spread out some of the
impact.
ARRIVAL DELAYS
Mr. Sabo. Although when I look at arrival delays, Los
Angeles is there. Phoenix is there. San Francisco is there.
Denver is there. Las Vegas is there. St. Louis is there.
Mr. Carr. And that is exactly descriptive of what happens
when you have an infinite number of potential incoming arrival
routes reduced to a finite number of concrete planning surfaces
because you can have airplanes taking off from 2,000 cities in
the United States headed for Los Angeles, but when you get to
L.A. you are landing on two pieces of concrete, and you are
landing two by two.
Mr. Sabo. Well, in terms of takeoffs and landings in 1999,
I think L.A. had 517,000. We had 482,000.
Mr. Carr. And I would have to look. To be honest with you,
I would have to look at the construction of the airport. Like I
said earlier, O'Hare has three sets of parallel runways. You
can configure them 27 different ways.
Mr. Sabo. I understand O'Hare.
Mr. Carr. So it would depend on the configuration of the
airport versus--Los Angeles has two parallels. You can land
east or west, and that is it. They have two pieces of concrete
only.
They predominantly land from the east to the west and take
off west over the ocean for noise abatement reasons, which you
have mentioned earlier as being a great concern, so L.A. is a
single direction airport.
Mr. Sabo. Denver, with the new airport, is seventh on
arrival delays.
Mr. Carr. And that I would attribute to weather.
Mr. Mead. Mr. Sabo, be careful how far you take the 70
percent on weather figure. The 70 percent figure is derived
from FAA data for the flights for what they tracked, for the
reasons they tracked. They do not keep track of all the other
reasons that you have for delays.
They report delays that they track. For example, when I
compare the FAA delay number for Minneapolis, their number is
6,658 for 2000. The actual number of arrival delays there were
about 30,000, so that is another reason why----
Mr. Sabo. Which is comparable to the figure on your
testimony?
Mr. Mead. Yes, the 30,000.
Mr. Sabo. It is comparable?
Mr. Mead. Just split the number in half because what goes
up must come down, but that is just a further illustration of
why it is important to mesh these different databases.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
PITTSBURGH AIRPORT
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis, one piece of business here.
We called the Pittsburgh Airport and asked them how many
parking spaces they have in their parking lot. They have 9,375.
We also asked them how many enplanements they had in
Pittsburgh, and it runs about 200,000 a week. What do you think
of their parking?
Mr. Merlis. I really do not know much about Pittsburgh.
Mr. Rogers. Well, let me tell you about Pittsburgh. You
told me earlier that most of the traffic coming out of
Pittsburgh was local generated traffic. Aviation Week had it
wrong. Perfectly wrong.
According to the DOT for the 12 month period ending in June
1999, local traffic was 36 percent, not 63. The fly through
traffic was 64 percent, just the flip side of what you said,
which makes sense to me. I mean, I told you at the time I did
not believe it.
Mr. Merlis. I stand corrected. I was quoting somebody else.
It was not our data, sir.
AAAE FIVE STEPS TO SOLVE THE DELAY PROBLEM
Mr. Rogers. Yes. Okay. Now the five steps. Here is what I
will do to help solve the problem with travel rage in America.
I am going to save Mr. Mead until last because I think
maybe he will have a different seat. We will start at the other
end of the table.
Mr. Barclay. Very good.
Mr. Rogers. And we will ask Mr. Barclay.
Mr. Barclay. Number one, we are going to push for
streamlining the construction process of adding runways. Two,
we are going to seek the ability to pay for FAA employees to
speed up the approval of runway projects when that would help.
In other words, similar to pharmaceutical companies when they
want to speed up the approval of a new drug can actually pay
the added costs that are imposed on the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to do that, the major airports are also
going to be asking for that ability to help FAA out in those
circumstances where they need special employees to move things
quickly through.
Mr. Rogers. Halt. What do you think, Ms. Garvey?
Ms. Garvey. Great idea and we are very enthusiastic.
Mr. Rogers. Congratulations.
Mr. Barclay. Well, I am worried about getting to this one.
These do not have to be easy political things that we are
seeking. We have been recommending that we lift the cap on PFCs
because it primarily benefits the largest airports with the
most passengers and, as part of that, give the airports more
flexibility on how to spend those funds.
One of the things that would help a lot in adding capacity
is if airports had more flexibility, for example, to do off-
airport remediation. If you want to build a new Bay runway at
San Francisco, but you are willing to do a lot more to help the
Bay than damage you are going to do and you are willing to
spend a lot of money to do that, that makes that capacity
addition a lot more doable. So at these larger airports where
today money is not their biggest problem, usually, but if we
add this element of remediation that could be a positive for
the system. That is number 3.
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Rogers. Yes?
Mr. Pastor. In Phoenix, we are trying to deal with these
problems with additional runways, how do you get light rails
into the airport, and one of the comments that was made by the
people who serve us in our federal agencies, both the Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) and the FAA, is that through some
of the laws we have passed and regulations that have been
developed that we have diminished the flexibility with the FAA
and with the airports to have the flexibility to work out
unique situations.
Not every airport is the same and by having general
regulations sometimes a way of saving money to solve some of
the problems the airports have those strict regulations and
laws have caused us not to be able to do things. And so I would
suggest, Mr. Chairman, that maybe that may be something we
would want to look at as a committee because I have recently
encountered that and would be a proponent of maybe looking at
regulations, how we can give flexibility to the FAA and to the
airports, including all the charges that are there, to see if
we can speed up the infrastructure development.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Barclay, proceed.
Mr. Barclay. Let me footnote that and say that we do agree
that in general you should keep airport revenues on the
airport. These are for some useful exceptions to add capacity.
Fourth, we would like to see what we can do to help improve the
sharing of information with customers and among industry
partners. Airports have not had a direct role in that, but we
really also have not been involved in the committees that have
been working on it and I think we ought to see what we can do
to help get better information to customers when we do have it
under our control.
And, finally, we also need to be involved in the
coordination on ATC operations that has been talked about here.
That is something that is primarily again an airline/FAA
function that goes on, but it is something that airports, if
they know in advance what the flow control plan is for that
day, they can also make plans that may help the system. So that
was the best I could come up with in a couple of hours, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Does anybody see a problem with any of those?
[No response.]
ata five steps to solve the delay problem
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis, you are next.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir. First, these are not in order of
priority, they are just in order of my jotting them down. We
will commit to better utilizing the products of the Herndon
Command Center conference calls to address the daily schedule
so that we can identify places where delays may be occurring
and deal with those accordingly so that we reduce inconvenience
to the customers.
Mr. Rogers. How much better will you cooperate on that?
Mr. Merlis. I do not know how much we cooperate now, so I
cannot put a number on it, but clearly from the Administrator's
description, some carriers are doing better than others and so
what we need to do is identify which carriers are not paying as
much attention and admonish them to participate in this process
so that they can do a better job with their customers, as she
identified is the case with one of them.
Mr. Rogers. Any thoughts on that, Ms. Garvey?
Ms. Garvey. That would be wonderful and welcome indeed to
have Mr. Merlis make that kind of a commitment.
Mr. Rogers. How soon would that take place?
Mr. Merlis. I will have our president, as soon as she
returns from out of town, send a letter to the CEOs saying it
is an important step that must be taken in order to meet the
expectations of not just the traveling public, but also the
Congress of the United States.
Mr. Rogers. Well, the administrator is coming back to
testify in a couple of weeks. We should see the attitudes at
that time to see if it has improved. We will know by then, will
we not?
Ms. Garvey. You certainly will, Mr. Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. All right. We will let you know in a couple of
weeks. Number two?
Mr. Merlis. Number two. Subject to approval by DOT, put in
place the recommendations of that DOT delay reporting advisory
committee so that we can have a common system by which we
inform our customers of the reasons for delay and also can
identify the reasons for delay so that we can individually try
to remediate the causes.
Mr. Rogers. That is what you are going to let us know by
close of business today, is it not?
Mr. Merlis. No, sir. The next one is the one.
Mr. Rogers. All right.
Mr. Merlis. Which is to aggressively pursue the transfer of
the delay data from the FAA database into on-line computers
that are used to provide customer information. These are two
separate components, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Okay. You are going to let us know about that
by 5:00.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. All right.
Mr. Merlis. Third, we will work with the airport community
to identify capacity expansion projects and ways of
accomplishing them and financing them.
Mr. Olver. Can you repeat that?
Mr. Merlis. Yes. We will work with the airport community to
identify capacity expansion projects which have the goal of
reducing delays and work with the airport community to find
ways to fulfill those, both financially and through the
regulatory process.
Mr. Rogers. Does that include sub-hubbing or extra-hubbing?
Mr. Merlis. Well, I think that is one of the things that we
will bring to the carriers' attention. Clearly, we have heard
your message, sir, but I do not know how much it is the airport
community as the airlines themselves have to make the business
decision. Once they have made a business decision, they have to
work with an airport to see if it has the capacity to do what
it is they may want to do.
Mr. Rogers. What do you think, Mr. Barclay?
Mr. Barclay. I think you are going to see some sub-hubbing,
as you called it. In other words, when American, as Effective
date said, tried National and Raleigh-Durham and San Jose in
the mid 1990s, at that time, we were not seeing the cost of
delays they are now absorbing at Chicago and Dallas and Atlanta
and the other major hubs. So the economics are going to drive
them to say we have to consider having more hubs in the system.
The interesting question you brought up is whether there are
incentives that we can get them to speed up that consideration
that the marketplace will get them to eventually.
Mr. Rogers. Of course, your airports have a passing
interest in this because more and more people are driving long
distances to get to that mega hub, bypassing a lot of airports
who are going out of business, who are withering on the vines.
And not only would creating more mini-hubs or sub-hubs, if you
will, improve the travelers' convenience and, I hope, pricing,
but it will also help those local airports to survive and not
cost so much to their city fathers.
Mr. Barclay. Airports are out there in the marketing
business these days. Airports go and visit airlines, trying to
attract their business when they are not a congested major hub
and they are pretty aggressive about competing with each other.
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Rogers. Yes?
Mr. Pastor. Could I request that as part of that resolution
the airline industry give us what are reasonable incentives
that they would consider to develop and go to spoke hubs, sub-
hubs or whatever you want to call it, because I think it would
be important for us to know what would be some incentives and
then how we could assist them in providing those.
Mr. Barclay. Surely, sir.
Mr. Rogers. All right.
Mr. Merlis. And the last one, we will petition the DOT to
reconsider the denied boarding compensation rules in order to
better accommodate passengers who are bumped and otherwise
inconvenienced. These rules are quite old, sir, and I think
they should be updated to take account of current
circumstances.
regulation for passenger compensation
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mead, what is your reaction to that?
Mr. Mead. Yes. The people that get involuntarily bumped,
they get paid less than the people that voluntarily get off and
the limits have not been changed in two decades.
Mr. Rogers. So you are going to change them?
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir. We will petition to change them. It
is done by rule, so unilaterally it is not done, but the
carriers will petition to change them.
Mr. Rogers. How soon will that take place?
Mr. Merlis. I would anticipate within the next two weeks or
so the documents will be prepared. I cannot be sure because I
do not know which lawyer is writing it. I do not know what his
schedule is. But I anticipate within two weeks or so.
Mr. Rogers. I am sure you will speak with whatever lawyer
it is and encourage him.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir. I will encourage him. And I will
provide him with your phone number if he does not take my
encouragement.
Mr. Rogers. All right. I would love to hear from him if he
has a problem.
Mr. Merlis. He will not.
Mr. Rogers. How long will it take the DOT to react and act
on that, do you think, Mr. Mead?
Mr. Mead. If it comes in as a concrete proposal, I think
they can move pretty quickly when the airlines are behind it. A
case in point is the increase in the baggage liability limit
from $1250 to $2500. The airlines petitioned for that and it
moved like lightning, especially in comparison to that 3.8
years I was telling you about last week.
Mr. Rogers. Well, okay. That is a good step. Proposed step.
Mr. Merlis. Sir, I just wanted to affirm that we are
committed to doing the right thing and we have been tardy in
doing so and you have our assurance that we want to serve our
customers better. No one should be treated poorly and steps
that can be taken to improve are a high priority for the
airlines.
alpa five steps to solve the delay problem
Mr. Rogers. Glad to know that. We will test their actions
by your words. By their acts shall ye know them. All right.
That is your five. Thank you very much.
Captain?
Mr. Woerth. Well, the first thing, as I am a member of the
Free Flight Steering Committee and if there is any committee
that has a chance to bring forth realistic proposals and more
importantly to Appropriations Committee, a budget is one of the
things we can do together, and as a member of that committee
committing to absolutely eliminating all competing bids. We
cannot fund every project in the world and what happens all the
time, we try to ask you guys for an awful lot of things but we
have not coordinated amongst ourselves.
Let us agree amongst ourselves what we need so we do not
put five requests to you. Let us put two requests before you
that you can fund and will actually work. All of us will not
get what we want, but we will be better off coming to Congress
with a plan the industry agrees on. That is all the operators,
controllers, the pilots, the military is involved with it, the
operators. Do a better job of prioritizing what we want from
you so you are not always having so many requests to deal with
and you are not trying to fund a lot of projects that never
come to fruition. Because I am a member of that Free Flight
Steering Committee as the president of the Air Line Pilots
Association, we will do that.
And with John, I commit really to John, we have an
alliance, a liaison, rather, with the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association (NATCA). There are two people directly
involved with the scope and with the flight controls,
everything we can do together to improve that liaison to make
sure that we are not in conflict. We coordinate a lot together,
but every once in a while we bump up against each other because
of our different responsibilities and to work with air traffic
controllers to smooth that out.
The third was to bring into that liaison and dialogue that
we have had between NATCA and the Air Line Pilots Association,
frankly, the flight dispatchers, that is where the company
comes in, that is where the rubber meets the road, that is the
company's representative on an hour-to-hour, minute-by-minute
basis. We need to do a better job of bringing the flight
dispatchers into our decision making group to make significant
improvements there.
And the fourth would certainly be, frankly, to take--we are
going to do everything we can in the Air Line Pilots
Association to standardize flight time and duty time across the
industry and not allow egregious behavior by--not all these
competitors are the same and I want to tell you why that is
important. Inside a lot of this reporting that the FAA cannot
agree on, the DOT cannot agree on, what the airlines cannot
agree on, there are an awful lot of things that end up as being
reported as crew delay. Well, it was really a crew delay
because the crew has been scheduled up and passed their legal
limits by the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). That is a
16-hour duty day.
And we especially in a lot of our regional carriers that is
common practice and I am intent on eliminating it, not just for
the pilots' benefit, for the public's safety benefit, but it
has a corollary. We are going to have a lot of improvement in
delays if we do not have unrealistic and candidly unsafe
scheduling practices by a lot of our carriers that have not
come to grips with their responsibility on scheduling something
that has a realistic chance, not just of serving the customer,
but its flight crew is not going to end up 16 hours later still
having two legs to go. So we are committed to do that.
And the fifth thing is the buck stops with us, to never
lose sight of what we have to do. We are going to cooperate
with efforts to improve capacity where we can. There is Land
and Hold Short Operations (LAHSO), there is Precision Runway
Monitor (PRM), there are a number of different things and we
will move aggressively to do what is possible, but know the
difference when we are pushing the safety margins, but give our
best efforts in every one of those, improve capacity while
maintaining the highest levels of safety.
natca five steps to solve the delay problem
Mr. Rogers. All right. Thank you, Captain.
And Mr. Carr?
Mr. Carr. Yes, sir. The very first thing that I am going to
do and that the people I represent are going to do is to ensure
that anything else anybody else in this room comes up with is
measured against the safety of the flying public. We actually
are at the point of service delivery for that safety and
between ourselves and the pilots, it is at either end of that
microphone where the safety of the flying public lies. I am
going to commit to everyone in this room that any of these
initiatives that we all come up with and can agree upon are
measured against that very basic litmus test.
The second thing I am going to do is I am going to come
before the Congress at some point and ask you to hire some more
controllers. I think we need to hire more air traffic
controllers sooner rather than later. As I previously
described, we are on the 20th anniversary of the PATCO strike
of 1981. The men and women that I represent are coming up on
retirement and I think that we need to proactively hire the
workforce that is going to replace the workforce that has been
working the traffic for the last 20 years.
The third thing I can commit to doing is to working with
the FAA to reach agreement on key national air space redesign
initiatives. In addition to freeing up controllers to work on
national air space redesign by hiring new ones, we can work to
unleash the human capital that we both represent.
I believe that the answers to a lot of the questions with
respect to air space redesign, with respect to choke point
sectors, with respect to over saturation, is within the
workforce that I represent. Like I say, they are at the point
of service delivery. I think they are uniquely qualified to
give the answers to the agency that they seek on air space
redesign and I can commit to you that we are going to continue
to work towards the goal of a clean sheet of paper approach to
redesigning the air space because the air space has not been
redesigned since manned flight began.
Speaking of things that have not been redesigned since
manned flight began, the fourth thing I would like to commit to
you is that we are ready, willing and able to join with NASA,
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the pilots, the
FAA and any interested parties that think it might be prudent
to conduct a study and a very careful examination of separation
standards. The separation standards that are currently in use
date back to the late 1940s and early 1950s. They were invented
out of whole cloth. They were basically agreed upon due to
limitations in radar, limitations in equipment, and they date
to the dawn of radar itself.
I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that the
separation standards which literally were made up 50 years ago
are the actual, real number. So I can commit to you that any
time the community of aviation wishes to take a realistic
reexamination of those separation standards, we are ready,
willing and able to do that. Any marginal or fractional
decrease in separation standards, again, has to be measured
against the litmus test of safety, but could instantaneously
free up unused capacity in the system.
Fifty years ago they said five miles is an adequate
separation distance. I am not so certain that they knew that
then. I think they knew that it was plenty, I do not know if
they knew if it was the number. So we stand ready to take a
look at those any time anybody is willing.
And the last thing that I say that we will commit to do, in
1996 the Congress passed FAA reform. The FAA reform bill
created the Management Advisory Council (MAC). AIR-21 last year
identified the players on the Management Advisory Council. It
provided for a labor seat on the MAC. The MAC has already met
several times and yet the labor seat on the MAC continues to
languish. So I would like to encourage the members of this
subcommittee to work with the administration to fill the labor
seat on the MAC. That committee continues to meet without
labor's participation. I think the labor seat on the MAC should
be filled and as long as I have the microphone I think you
should fill it with me. And those are my five.
faa five steps to solve the delay problem
Mr. Rogers. Ms. Garvey?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I have actually six
because I added delays.
First of all, complete the implementation of the choke
point initiatives and to measure the results. I think that is
almost as important as implementing the initiatives, but really
taking a look at what we are getting from it, is it making a
difference. So measuring the results, I think, is very
important.
Secondly, use the capacity benchmarks as a springboard for
action boards for the top 10 airports. Each one may be
different, but I think an action plan for the top 10 is
important.
Number three, keep Free Flight Phase 1 and Free Flight
Phase 2 on track, get it implemented and deployed. We have met
every schedule and stayed on budget with Free Flight Phase 1.
We want to make sure we keep at that and also implement Free
Flight Phase 2.
Number four is to reach agreement with the airlines on the
National Operation Evolution Plan. That is the 10-year
strategic plan that the Inspector General referred to. We think
it is critical and it is important. We look forward to really
reaching a conclusion with the airlines on that.
Number five would be to work with the airport community and
the initiative around streamlining some of the projects for
capacity. Again, we would probably focus on the top airports.
We are committed to getting a report to Congress in April with
some recommendations around environmental streamlining. We will
meet that deadline and also continue to work with Mr. Barclay
and others on other initiatives around streamlining. And then
finally, of course, define delays in time for the budget
hearing. We will take that on willingly.
ig five steps to solve the delay problem
Mr. Rogers. All right. Thank you. And Mr. Mead.
Mr. Mead. I was taking notes here as my colleagues were
laying out their lists and I think consistent with what our
role is, we have the good fortune of not having to run these
programs. We audit them, review them and investigate them, so
we grouped what we would do into five categories also, but they
lend themselves more in terms of reporting to the community and
to you and to the Secretary on the status of these various
initiatives, chief among which were the causal tracking system.
We think we need to run that to ground and we will stay on top
of that and report to you and others on the exact status of it
and what needs to be done to fix it.
Once the airport capacity benchmarks are issued, we think
we probably could play a good role there in tracking dispersal
of flights from your main hubs to sub-hub activity; we'll also
analyze what these benchmarks mean in terms of the future
because we do not want them to be static. We do not want to
live with the status quo.
On the runway projects, we feel we need to establish what
the milestones are and to track where they are in relationship
to the costs of the projects.
Also, a number of initiatives that Ms. Garvey mentioned, we
think we could usefully be some eyes and ears to check on the
status of the implementation of those.
And you should also know that on the demand management
front, how you manage demand during the short-term period is an
area that I think is going to get increasing attention in the
next year or two and we would provide you, the Congress and the
secretary, with an analysis of that.
whistleblower protection
Mr. Rogers. All right. Does anybody want to comment on any
of the others' points before we wind down here?
Mr. Woerth. One point, if I could, Mr. Chairman. One of the
things that is going to be a key in this whole process, working
with the FAA and NATCA, is really if we are going to get to the
truth of what separation can be and what is the safety system
and what are our real margin of safety, we need to have what we
call a no-fault reporting system. The air traffic controllers
and the pilots, to keep it safe, need to tell everybody the
absolute truth of what is going on there but not fear that
every single time we are going to get fired for telling you
what is really wrong with the system.
That is what we have right now, we have a punishment system
and it is designed that way because of FAA enforcement. We are
working with Ms. Garvey to ensure that--and with NATCA, whether
it be ``snitch patch'' on busting five-mile separation rules or
anything that a pilot might be involved with deviation, if we
are going to find out what this capacity can actually do, we
need to know the absolute truth so we can have absolute safety
at the same time. And we are not going to get there until we
have no-fault reporting, especially on the basis of pilots and
air traffic controllers.
If we can do that, we will find out what we can really do.
That is getting to the point about having the right data, the
right facts, we can all agree on something. I know John and Ms.
Garvey agree with us, if we can get to that, we will find out
what we can really do with this system.
Mr. Rogers. What do you say about that, Ms. Garvey?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, we agree fully. We are in the
process of developing a rule just to that effect. As Mr. Mead
knows, we have had some difficulties with some of the other
agencies, they have a slightly different point of view, but I
know that this Secretary seems very prepared to work that
through the current Administration, so we look forward to that.
Mr. Mead. Do you recall, sir, last week we were discussing
rulemakings? And one I mentioned, I said I thought in our
judgment the FAA had taken it about as far as they could? It's
the one on the sophisticated black boxes and there were issues
with the Justice Department and the Environmental Protection
Agency and OMB. This is the rulemaking that Ms. Garvey was
referring to.
separation standards
Mr. Rogers. And on the separation question, what is your
reaction to that?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, I just actually made a note to
myself to talk with John. I think that is absolutely the right
question that we need to be asking. And his point about
bringing in the NTSB is, I think, to be applauded. I think it
is a standard that is very old and is worth reexamining. It is
not easy because obviously we all care very deeply about
safety, but I think having the controllers, the pilots, the
NTSB at the table, I think you would have the right players
certainly.
conclusion
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Now, we have your five goals that each of
you have set for yourselves and for the system and it is quite
a bite out of the apple. If we can achieve these five steps
that each of you have outlined, we will have gone a long way.
So what I propose is that we have had such a good time
today that we reassemble this group in about a month or six
weeks and we want a chance to give you a report card about how
well you will have achieved the goals that you are setting out
because the only way I think we will make these things happen
is if somebody forces all of us to pull the same direction and
communicate with each other, as well as the Congress.
So you will be receiving an invitation to reappear here and
to let us chat with you about how well you are doing and we
will keep that brief. It will be probably--I do not want to set
the date at this time, but the Secretary of Transportation is
scheduled to testify in about a month, I think, about six
weeks, and I would like to be able to do that before he comes
so that we can all cheerfully report to the Secretary that we
have all of these problems solved.
Is that agreeable with everyone?
Anything further?
[No response.]
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Clyburn, you have not had a chance to ask
questions. Would you like to be recognized?
Mr. Clyburn. No, Mr. Chairman. I have really been on the
phone for the last 45 minutes trying to get from here to San
Jose and it is proving to be quite an issue to try and get that
done today. So maybe in six weeks I will have something to say
about it.
Mr. Rogers. Well, as somebody once said, I would just as
soon be in Philadelphia.
Well, thank you very much for your time. We have kept you
beyond what we had hope. So we will see you in a few weeks and
thank you so much for participating.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thursday, March 15, 2001.
Afternoon Session
WITNESSES
AMR EL SAWY, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR ADVANCED AVIATION SYSTEMS
DEVELOPMENT, MITRE CORPORATION
JOHN HANSMAN, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
GEORGE L. DONOHUE, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
CYNTHIA BARNHART, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. The Subcommittee will be in order.
This afternoon, we are returning for a second session on
the subject of airline delays and cancellations.
This morning, we had representatives of the major
government agencies and associations representing the aviation
community and they have told us what they were going to do and
be held accountable for over the next few weeks to address the
delay problem which has reached epidemic proportions, as you
know, in this country.
They gave us five solutions each that they will be working
on. We intend to have them back here in this room in five or
six weeks to see how they are doing on those five chores that
they have set for themselves each.
This afternoon, we want to delve more deeply into an
understanding of the delay problem itself, receiving testimony
from a group of independent university professors and from
Mitre Corporation's Aviation Research and Development Center.
I hope this analysis will help us verify whether or not the
items selected this morning are on the right track. Your
independent perspective is greatly appreciated.
Introduction of Witnesses
So I welcome the panel today. We will first hear from Mr.
Amr ElSawy, the senior vice president of the Mitre Corporation
and General Manager of Center for Advanced Aviation System
Development; then we will receive testimony from Dr. Cynthia
Barnhart and Dr. John Hansman from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) and from Dr. George Donohue of George Mason
University. And Dr. Donohue has appeared before the
Subcommittee before as FAA's head of acquisition and research.
The others, I think, are new before the Subcommittee.
We will receive your oral statements in the order that I
described and then proceed to questions. We will file your
written statement as part of the record and you will be invited
to summarize it orally for us as briefly as you can.
Before we proceed, though, let me yield to my colleague.
Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. No opening, Mr. Chairman.
Mitre Corporation Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Mr. ElSawy, the floor is yours.
Mr. ElSawy. Mr. Chairman, good afternoon, and thank you
very much for the opportunity to be here.
What I would like to share with you today is the result of
work that was done with the Federal Aviation Administration in
collaboration with airlines, airport authorities, air traffic
control facilities, the command center. So what you see here is
analysis that takes a variety of different perspectives. I will
cover three scenarios from actual operations in June 2000,
focusing primarily on three areas that we feel really
demonstrate some of the causes for enroute delays that you
addressed earlier in this morning's session.
And then I will talk about what is happening on the ground
and how those two mesh together to provide some clarity on the
problem of delays.
This is a picture of the en route centers of the contiguous
USA. We heard a lot this morning about the northeast and what
is happening with the northeast.
The boundaries that you see on this picture represent the
air traffic control center boundaries. Of course, each of those
centers is responsible for traffic and for the control of
traffic in its boundaries and then as airplanes and users cross
those boundaries, then there is communications between the
centers.
What I show here are the routes for the Newark arrivals
from the west. As I start adding the arrival routes for Kennedy
and JFK and LaGuardia, the density of those routes increases
quite substantially and it really starts demonstrating the
funnelling effect that you heard about this morning in the
statements by Mr. Carr.
Now, those are the routes in the system today and those are
based upon the existence of ground-based navigational aids. As
we start moving towards GPS and more sophisticated navigation
systems, you will get some flexibility in those routes and you
will start seeing some improvements in the navigational
capability for aircraft to take advantage of that increased
accuracy. But, even though you are adding flexibility and
capacity in the air space, you will still need to be able to
land those airplanes and funnel them through the particular
airports that they are destined for.
So in fact the first scenario that I want to address, and
this was all done in preparation for the establishment of the
creation of the NAS Operational Evolution Plan that
Administrator Garvey referenced this morning, that strategic
plan that starts to look at what are the causes of the delays,
what are the basic problems in the system and how do we address
them.
I am going to step through this scenario very quickly.
The first problem we characterized as widespread delays
resulting from local problems.
What you can see is Newark airport right here and Newark
airport has traffic destined for it. Five arrivals show up in
the air traffic system more than were expected in Newark and
certainly more than the scheduled capacity of Newark at that
time.
At that point in time, the New York center notified the
Cleveland center that it cannot accept any more arrivals into
the Newark airport.
The result is that the Cleveland center begins to hold
incoming Newark aircraft further out into the enroute system
and you start seeing a propagation of that holding pattern in
those areas.
Now, that does not mean that all of those aircraft are
going to be delayed. They are simply impacted by that capacity
constraint in Newark.
The problems can then cascade in a very short time. As far
back as Minneapolis, and Chicago, centers start seeing
congestion and, in fact, the problem that started out as an
airport demand capacity imbalance quickly translates into a
problem of en route congestion because there is simply no more
air space available to relieve that congestion.
And so, in fact, what you start seeing in the system, and
this is--we discussed this this morning and you heard many
discussions about this--the various airports start being
affected and the flows from various parts of the country into
those airports also start being affected because the air space
is congested.
So when talking about capacity and delays, we have to talk
not only about the capacity of the air space, but also the
flexibility of the air space to move traffic around. Some of
the initiatives related to air space design, and this was one
of the commitments that was made this morning, I think is a
very, very important element of the solution set that you were
starting to ask about.
The air space in the northeast to accommodate and to
resolve the choke points is extremely important, the
resectorization is extremely important and the staffing
associated with those sectors is also extremely important. So I
wholeheartedly agree with those commitments.
The second scenario is one that was also raised this
morning where this is an example, and everything I am showing
you is based upon actual information, it is not simulated, this
is actual data that we used to analyze the situation.
On one day, the New York area traffic flows were affected
by a very thin line of thunderstorms that persisted over an
extended period of time.
The New York area metro traffic was then diverted to avoid
the weather and to take advantage of holes in the weather
pattern. That in turn started affecting the D.C. metro flows
and the other airports that you heard about today like Atlanta
and DFW and Houston. And this scenario repeats on a regular
basis as you start shifting the traffic flows. There are always
aircraft coming into the system and I think Professor Hansman
will show you a very clear demonstration of what that looks
like.
Even as the controllers in the command centers start
shifting that traffic to allow the maximum number to go
through, you still are impacting other parts of the system in
ways that in fact are pretty clear here.
So, in fact, in Atlanta, you could very well get a delay as
a result--if you are going from Atlanta to Minneapolis, for
example, or if you are going from Atlanta to the New York area,
you would very much get a delay that is ``weather related,''
but when you look outside the weather is perfectly clear.
So in terms of the communication that we talked about and
the information sharing and so forth, this is an example of why
timely, shared information is needed.
Also what you can see is that as this scenario develops the
density of the traffic in Atlanta and around the northeast
becomes very, very high and that is an essential element of
some of the improvements that Administrator Garvey talked about
in the free flight programs. To, in fact, provide the tools to
the controllers to be able to handle that increased level of
congestion. That is another component of the commitments this
morning that I think was very much valued and exactly right on
track.
The third scenario is a little bit different, but just as
predictable, and this is what happens in San Francisco. San
Francisco has fog on a regular basis. That fog results in
essentially a halving of the capacity for the San Francisco
airport and, in fact, the result is that the departures and the
arrivals cannot come into the airport which then ripples
through the system on a regular basis. And that is an example
of where some of the technologies are really needed in order to
improve the capacity of the airport.
I think there was a commitment made to look at parallel
runway monitor technologies as well as LAHSO procedures and
things like that and I think those are the kinds of activities,
although LAHSO would not help in San Francisco, it certainly
would help in other places. Again, so I would agree with that
recommendation as well.
So this is what is happening in the air. We are now going
to shift gears a little bit and go to what is happening on the
ground.
This is an actual simulation of the LaGuardia operation at
four p.m. This work is the result of, again, a lot of
collaboration with the air traffic control facilities, with the
LaGuardia authorities, with the tower controllers, and this is
a very high fidelity simulation, so every aircraft, the gates,
the taxiways, the runways, and the air space around the
LaGuardia airport is very much true to the actual operation,
but this is sped up.
It will just take you a minute here to see what is
happening in the airport and what you can see are the arrivals
coming in from the top, and the departures lining up.
The length of the departure queue that you see is close to
a mile. And so you could see a tremendous number of aircraft
that are sitting on the runway waiting to depart and it really
indicates very clearly how the resource in the airport is so
over constrained there is no capacity and there is no
flexibility and there is no margin for anything out of the
ordinary to happen.
What I showed you here is what happens on a perfectly clear
day. You can imagine as conditions deteriorate, as runways are
affected by debris or other issues how the capacity of
LaGuardia becomes severely affected.
So we asked the question, so what is the impact of one
airport or any number of airports on the rest of the system?
And, again, we took some actual data, we looked at delayed
flights as defined in the airline service quality performance
data and actually ``flew'' the system on an airframe by
airframe basis and this is what it looks like.
So in the morning, this is an example of LaGuardia, and I
am only using LaGuardia to illustrate a set of the points that
we discussed today. Out of 34 airports early in the morning,
204 flights are destined to go to LaGuardia. Conditions at
LaGuardia are such that 144 of those flights are delayed.
Seventy-one percent of the flights going into LaGuardia get
affected.
At LaGuardia, there are other flights that are sitting
ready to take off and so the 204 that came in plus an
additional 34 that were already at LaGuardia start getting
ready to take off. They also are delayed. The percentage of the
delay there, this is the first leg now out of LaGuardia to 37
other airports and you can see that the percentage of delay
there increases to 77 percent.
Those aircraft that have now arrived on their first leg are
now preparing for the second leg and they move to 62 other
airports. You could see the percentage delays there are not
much better, 69 percent. And then finally, in the third and
fourth leg of the system, by the end of the day, you have
affected essentially 74 airports and the percent delay in the
system has not changed substantially because we are now still
operating with that delay, that resource that is common gets
used over and over and over again as part of the system
strategies that the airlines are using and therefore you see
that effect propagate through the system.
Now, this is on a day where things were bad, but they were
not bad enough for a lot of cancellations to be there. So as a
result, what you can see here is that--and we have done this
for the seven top airports that you were asking about earlier
today, both on good days and on bad days.
On a good day, you see a very interesting effect, which is
that if LaGuardia's delays are reduced by 20 percent, then you
see a very quick dampening effect in the other airports, so the
effect is not as great.
All this points to the plan that Administrator Garvey
referred to where we basically looked at the four basic
problems in the national airspace system, en route congestion,
arrival/departure throughput, airport weather conditions and en
route severe weather, and we have identified solutions in each
of those areas that are agreed to by the community. We are
working with the airlines, with the general aviation community,
with the controllers as well as with the pilots to put together
a set of solutions that make sense and that people will think
will start addressing the problem.
None of these are easy by themselves and will require the
commitment that I think, Mr. Chairman, you expected this
morning and also will require a great deal of consistency in
the execution of these plans.
One of the areas that did not come up this morning as a
recommendation and I would certainly think it is very important
is that when you start thinking about the new technologies that
need to be introduced into the system, not only from the air
traffic control side but also from the airframe side, the
aircraft themselves need to be equipped to be able to meet the
higher standards of required navigational performance and
required communications performance.
As we start talking about adding flexibility, as we start
talking about adding precision to the way that we fly and to
the way that the aircraft use the system, we also need to
incentivize the accelerated implementation of avionics that can
support that. And this is one of those areas that can in fact
start leveling the playing field a little bit in terms of the
capabilities of the various aircraft, small and large, and also
provide the controllers with the ability to manage the system
in a more effective way.
With that, I will take any questions you may have. Thank
you for your time, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. ElSawy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
MIT Professor Barnhart Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much. Dr. Barnhart.
Ms. Barnhart. Let me begin by saying thank you for the
opportunity to talk to you today. I have prepared a short
presentation to describe some of the work that is going on at
MIT under the umbrella of the Global Airline Industry Program,
which is a new program we have. It is about a year and a half
old, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and this is just
one of the many research activities that we are undertaking.
In this presentation I am going to describe some of the
work we have done in looking at airline flight delays and
cancellations and I think importantly the impact on passengers.
So let me begin with some simple statistics.
If you take a look at the delays experienced by aircraft
over the time period from 1995 to 2000, you see that the
percentage of flights that are arriving later than scheduled is
not changing all that much in this timeframe. So you see in
2000, the percentage of flights arriving late is about 50
percent, not so different from the previous years.
You go a little bit further and you look at the average
delay experienced by flights that are being operated, you see
again something that might be somewhat surprising. In 1995, the
average delay was six minutes; in 2000, it has increased, but
to an average of 10 minutes per flight.
Let us take one more look at a statistic and here we are
looking at the on-time performance as defined within 15 minutes
of scheduled arrival time. And here you see that from 1995 to
2000, on-time performance has worsened, but it is still showing
that over 70 percent of flights in 2000 are on time.
So the question we asked was why, then, if you look at
these statistics are passengers so disgruntled?
And our response is that simple statistics are misleading.
They do not tell the whole story. The statistics that I just
presented talk about aircraft delays, but there is not a direct
correlation between aircraft delays and passenger delays, so
let me give you a couple of slides here that try to explain as
you delve more deeply into this why aircraft delays seem to be
somewhat controlled while passenger delays are growing at a
much quicker rate.
So here what I show is if you contrast 1995 and 2000 and
you look at the number of flights that are delayed, you will
see that there is a shift from flights experiencing short
delays, that is, 15 minutes or less, to flights experiencing
long delays, more than 45 minutes.
So you see that between 1995 and 2000, the number of
flights delayed more than 45 minutes is almost doubling. And
you further see that the total minutes of delay associated with
those flights, these long-delayed flights, is increasing
rapidly.
Now, why is this important?
Well, it is important because it has really critical
effects on what the passenger experiences, so what I have done
here is I have put a summary chart and we have taken data
provided by the ASQP that shows both the scheduled flights on a
given day and the actual schedule for those flights.
As part of this Global Airline Industry Program, we have
gotten data from one of the major airlines in the U.S. that
shows their passenger demand data for that day. And what it
shows is that although on average aircraft arrived early, the
average passenger delay was 25 minutes.
So the question is how can this be, that aircraft on
average arrive early but passenger delays are 25 minutes?
And the key to understanding this is to look at the mix of
passengers, the local passengers and the connecting passengers.
A local passenger who flies on a single leg, the delay they
experience is much more closely related to the delay the
aircraft experiences, so they experience here an average 10-
minute delay.
Well, you might ask, why do they experience any delay at
all on average when the average flight delay is negative?
And the answer to that question is that there are
cancellations in the system and when you compute average delay
minutes for the aircraft, canceled flights do not come into the
calculation, but they do for the passenger because when their
flight is canceled then they have to be reassigned. Their
arrival time can be delayed significantly.
Now, if you take a look at the purple bar here, you see the
average delay for the connecting passengers is more than 30
minutes and what is happening here is that as you shift from
the shorter delays to the longer delays, more and more
passengers miss their connections, and so although the flight
they were supposed to connect to might have arrived on time
they are not on it and they have to wait until the next flight
or, with these increasing load factors, perhaps even the flight
after that before they are able to finally get to their
destination. So you see that the delay experienced by the
aircraft can be very different from that experienced by the
passenger.
Another important point to look at is canceled flights.
Again, because the delay experienced by passengers is a
function of canceled flights, we took a look at this and what
we found was that from 1995 to 2000, the cancellation rate
increased significantly. And as we delved a little more deeply,
we found that there are two things to look at here: the green
plot and the blue one.
The green one represents the cancellation rate starting at
about 1 percent in 1995 to about 4 percent in 2000 for all the
major U.S. airlines except Southwest.
Southwest is the bottom blue line. That shows that from
1995 to 2000, their cancellation rate has been maintained at a
pretty constant rate of about 1 percent.
So the question that arises here is why this difference?
And so we took a look at hubs and what we found was that if
you look at the hubs for the various large airlines and you
compare the cancellation rate in 1995 with that in 2000, you
see that there has been a tremendous increase in the rate of
flight cancellations. And so this phenomenon at the hubs has
resulted in an increase in flight cancellations for the major
airlines using these hubs.
So let me just summarize that what we are finding with this
work is that the simple statistics that measure aircraft delays
are not adequate to measure passenger delays because there is
the issue that passenger delays can outpace aircraft delays,
sometimes significantly, especially as the number of connecting
passengers increases, as cancellation rates increase and as
load factors increase, and so managing passenger delays and
congested hub and spoke networks can be especially challenging.
As part of our work, we will further investigate the
impacts of these various network structures and schedules on
both aircraft and passenger delays.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement and biography of Ms. Barnhart
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
MIT Professor Hansman Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Dr. Hansman.
Mr. Hansman. Before I start with the comments, I thought I
would show you this movie which to me is the nicest
illustration of the dynamics of the U.S. system.
This is a depiction of traffic in the U.S. from real data
on a particular day, I think it was in April. It is 24 hours of
traffic. When I start the movie, hopefully we will get it
starting, you are sort of late in the day here and you can see
traffic flowing into the hubs such as Chicago, New York and
whatever.
We are going to go into the overnight time, you will see
the traffic will die down. You can actually see traffic going
into the cargo hubs, Memphis and Louisville.
About this time, this is late in the night, you can see the
traffic going out of the cargo hubs to the East Coast.
And look very carefully, here at dawn you can see this
blossoming of traffic on the East Coast and a wave of traffic
moving across the country until----
About here you are sort of midday U.S. where we have about
5500 airplanes in the air being controlled at any one time.
So you can see that this is a very dynamic system, a
tightly coupled network, where any interruption is going to
propagate into the system.
Now, let me go to the slides.
So what is the U.S. capacity issue?
Our transportation is approaching--this is my position--a
critical saturation threshold where nominal interruptions such
as weather result in a non-linear amplification of delay. The
U.S. and regional economies are highly dependent on air
transportation for business, freight and personal travel.
The system is sufficient complex and interdependent that I
would argue that nobody really fully understands the dynamics
of the system and we need to better understand it to guide and
justify the efforts to upgrade the system.
I will try and show you that the current efforts will not
provide sufficient capacity to meet demand and we really do not
understand the impact, both in terms of its operational impact
and economic impact.
This just shows you the same thing. We have been too
successful in our air transportation system. This shows you the
growth over the last 40 years in traffic demand.
If you look at the classic queuing model, delay versus
demand curve, this is demand here, this is delay, we are
starting to approach the capacity limit. And when you do that,
a small increase in demand results in a large increase in
delay, so you can think of this as a particular airport in the
system, particularly the hub airports, or it could be the
overall system. And really what is going on with the hub and
spoke system is you are getting peak problems in the capacity
demand.
The delays are getting worse. I will not spend a lot of
time talking about this, you have heard that today.
I want to tell you a little bit more about the national
airspace system and air traffic control. Air traffic management
is not really a designed system, it is an evolved system.
Air traffic management, the way we practice it today, is
really a contract process where we negotiate for air space and
airport service resources. It has evolved over 60 years. The
system has local adaptations which make it non-homogeneous, and
as a result, air traffic in New England is actually very
different from air traffic in the middle of the U.S.
Controllers cannot easily switch sites. It takes three to five
years for a controller to be trained at a new site.
Another thing to remember is that major operational changes
in the system were actually driven by crises coupled with
technical capability, so positive radar control was the result
of a collision over the Grand Canyon in 1956 and TCAS was a
result of a collision in Cerritos, California in 1982. There is
an interesting question as to what will be the impetus to cause
us to really go to a different paradigm in our system.
If you look at the overall capacity of the system, there
are factors which limit capacity. In terms of the airport, the
capacity is limited by the runways, the gates, land side limits
and the weather affects the capacity. The air space is also a
factor and Amr talked a little bit about it, the air space
design is an issue. Controller workload is an issue in what I
call Balkanization here.
Air space was originally really organized under a sort of
independent strategy where each air space unit could really be
controlled and operated independently and as the system has
become more tightly coupled, we now have issues that show up
when you have problems that propagate across air space
boundaries.
The demand has grown by the hub and spoke and we have a
hard time increasing our runway capacity due to environmental
problems, particularly noise.
I just want to take you through why airlines do a hub and
spoke system.
If you were an airline and you wanted to run a network,
this is a simple example of a 50-airport network. If I have hub
and spoke, I can fly through the entire network with two times
the total--N minus one flights, which means for 50 airports, I
can cover the network with 98 flights.
If I wanted to cover that entire network with direct
flights, it would take N times N minus one, so it would take me
2450 flights to cover the same network.
So from an airline standpoint, it is very efficient to fly
the hub and spoke. And what this really means to the traveling
public is that the airlines can justify service into weak
markets that they could not otherwise justify if they had to do
it in point-to-point.
If we look at the airport system in terms of its capacity
limits factors in more detail, the way we view it is you can
think about the airport and the way airplanes flow through the
airport so they flow in through an entry fix, through the
arrival fixes, they share runways, taxiways and ramp resources,
and then they turn at the gates and then become departures on
the outbound.
The constraints, the number one constraint is runways,
which is a major factor for both safety reasons and
environmental reasons. The runway capacity varies with weather
and I think you heard that this morning, which is a major
issue. If you were to resolve the runway problems, we actually
have a shortage of gates in many airports in the U.S.
The big problem, and Amr showed you an example, is that
downstream constraints, constraints at other airports, actually
back propagate to the runway and we hold airplanes on the
runway because of problems at other airports.
The controller workload is actually a limiting factor and
we see this. There are problems in the land side limits. It is
interesting, for example, at Newark, the constraint on
departure capacity for Continental Airlines is actually how
many cars they can get through the terminal in front of them.
Environmental constraints and safety are real issues. One
of the problems is that we really do not understand we do not
know how to do the safety versus capacity tradeoff. If I am
going to increase the capacity of the system without adding any
more resources such as runways, inherently I am going to have
to have the airplanes fly closer together and we really do not
know how to look at that. So let me give you one example in
terms of radar separation.
The radar separation assurance can be thought of this way.
I have an airplane and there is some real hazard zone around
the airplane. If I go in here, I hit the airplane.
The purple area here is uncertainty as to where that
airplane is due to my surveillance, due to my radar
performance.
The minimum separation standard is here as a dashed line
and the difference between the separation standard, for
example, en route separation is five miles and the radar
performance is what I call the procedural safety buffer.
Now, it turns out, outside of that minimum separation
standard is an additional personal safety buffer that the
controllers will add because they get violated if they go
within the minimum separated standards, so because they cannot
perfectly control the situation, they are going to add some
buffer.
Now, the interesting thing is if you look at the
performance of the radars, the en route radars, when these
standards were set up in 1950 at five-mile radar separation,
the performance of the radar was only about four and a half
miles uncertainty, so there was significant uncertainty in
terms of the position of the airplane.
Now, the radars have gotten significantly better. They have
gotten better by about a factor of two. So you would think that
we have taken advantage of the technology, but in fact we have
not. This is again a cartoon. Here are the radar separation
standards in the 1950s. The surveillance has gotten better, but
what we have done is we have used the increase in the
procedural safety buffer to improve the effective safety buffer
in the system. Because we never designed this in, this was not
an engineering factor, we do not really know what is in here,
we do not really know why people are using it, so it becomes
very hard to say close up the separation and, in fact, we
really have no process for closing the separation.
What can you do against the capacity shortfall?
Well, let me say that there is talk about full or partial
privatization. That may improve modernization costs and
strategic management. It will not really make a significant
impact on capacity. You can re-regulate or do peak demand
pricing to control the demand. That will reduce the service to
weaker markets. You need to make sure that the monies received
from peak demand pricing are going to go into improving
capacity.
You can run the system tighter which requires improvements
in the communications navigation surveillance that Amr talked
about. However, you have to figure out how to do the safety
versus capacity tradeoff.
You can build more capacity, but that has problems with
local community resistance.
You can look at multi-modal transportation, but that is
something we have not done very effectively in the U.S.
So the conclusion is the technology in the pipeline will
have limited impact on the peak capacity of currently stressed
airports, I say 20 to 40 percent optimistically, this is way
optimistic. The system is currently capacity restricted.
Airlines will ultimately schedule in response to the market
demand, but they will schedule to tolerable level of delay from
their own operations. It is a phenomena we call delay
homeostasis.
There will be increased traffic at secondary airports. For
example, in my area, Manchester, in Providence, they are seeing
increased demand, but the high value passengers still are
demanding high frequency service.
You probably know the average size of airplanes for the
large air carriers has gone down by about 10 percent in the
past few years.
Overall system response not clear. We need more runways. We
need new air traffic management paradigms and ultimately we
need forcible leadership to convince people to make the
changes, which is very hard. There are a lot of people who will
fight the changes, but we need that unless we want to live with
the capacity of the system as we currently have it.
Thanks.
[The prepared statement and biography of Mr. Hansman
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
George Mason University Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Dr. Donohue.
Mr. Donohue. Yes, sir. You can bring up the house lights. I
am going to forego any slides.
Mr. Donohue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege to
appear before you and your committee this afternoon.
The full testimony I have submitted for the record and so
with your permission I will just give a brief summary. The
graphics that I think are important to my testimony are
included in my submission and I will forego them this
afternoon.
To a great extent, I support the major observations of my
colleagues at the witness table. In my opinion, the delays in
flight cancellations experienced in 1999 and 2000 will continue
to increase for the foreseeable future, absent a major economic
downturn which would decrease demand on the system. This is no
matter what the FAA or the airlines do.
Also, due to budget constraints and a lack of industry
confidence in the FAA's ability to successfully make
substantial changes, the FAA blueprint for modernization,
sometimes called the NAS Architecture 4.0, is not designed to
substantially increase the air transportation safety or
capacity until well past the year 2010.
As you know, the U.S. hub and spoke system is approaching a
capacity crisis. Both safety and capacity are intertwined, as
several of my colleagues have already told you. With current
technology and procedures, the fundamental capacity cannot be
increased much further without decreasing safety.
Today, most air traffic modernization research is done by
NASA, not the FAA, and NASA's aeronautics budget is of enormous
importance to the FAA capacity improvement. This is a
congressional problem because of the different committee
structures overseeing their budgets and there is always a
coordination issue.
The FAA's research budget, however, including funds for air
traffic, airports and certification, must be increased to
permit a close involvement with NASA's AvSTAR and SATS
programs. Technology transfer is a contact sport and unless the
FAA is involved with what NASA does, whatever technology comes
out of that research will not be effectively transferred to the
FAA.
Specifically, the increase in system throughput by a factor
of three, which is NASA's stated goal, in my opinion is not
achievable using current paradigms, especially while reducing
accident rates by an order of magnitude.
There are five primary capacity limitations that lead to
delay.
First of all, as Professor Hansman has said, aircraft
spacing, I will say especially on approach to landing, is
fundamental to system capacity and therefore to schedule
delays. Aircraft spacing is limited by current surveillance
system accuracy and, more importantly, communication system
time lag delays, which generates some of that safety buffer
that Professor Hansman was talking about, in my opinion.
New, more accurate GPS technology is available to safely
reduce current spacing. However, an internationally accepted
data communications standard is required to implement this
technology for surveillance. Such an agreement has not been
reached and the FAA has not certified this technology for
aircraft certification.
The FAA needs to make a clear, unambiguous decision on this
data link system, preferably this year. It is called ADS-B or
Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast.
The second primary cause for delays and capacity limitation
is bad weather. You have heard this from some of the other
witnesses. Bad weather causes the FAA to increase separation
between aircraft or institute a system wide ground delay
program, which you may have heard about this morning, which
greatly reduces system capacity during times of severe winter
weather or spring/summer storms.
Better utilization of new convective weather forecasts is
required to prevent overly restricting the NAS capacity which
causes unnecessary flight delays and cancellations. Better
National Weather Service aviation forecasts and procedures for
making decisions based upon those forecasts are needed and the
National Weather Service Aviation Initiative should be funded.
Again, something that is somewhat outside of the control of the
FAA's budget, but absolutely essential to being able to deal
with some of these severe capacity problems.
Third, wake vortex separation sets the closest spacing that
aircraft can safely separate on approach to landing. Technology
is available and new systems are required to sense and monitor
the strength of aircraft wake vortices. The FAA needs a strong
wake turbulence research program and the FAA needs to fund the
airport modernization matching grants to begin implementation
of these systems.
Fourth, en route sector loading constraints due to human
factors cognitive workload limitations. This is an important
factor for the en route problems that you may have heard about.
It reduces capacity in a limited number of high density, high
workload sectors that affect the entire East Coast flight
operations.
More attention than the FAA plan currently envisions will
be required, in my opinion, to overcome this obstacle. Actions
may include ultimately moving to autonomous, airplane-to-
airplane separation systems. The FAA needs to support the NASA
AvSTAR and SATS programs which are addressing how those things
can be safely implemented.
Safety and operational realities must be part of the NASA
program which can tend to be separated from these issues that
the FAA deals with every day.
Fifth and last, the number of existing runways and runway
configurations are also a fundamental limitation to NAS
capacity, as Mr. ElSawy pointed out. Unfortunately, more
runways added at large hub airports will not increase capacity
much because of ground movement congestion and taxi times.
Aircraft ground movement, traffic controls and system wide time
coordinated time slots may have to be implemented at major hub
airports. The queuing problems that Professor Hansman talked
about are intrinsic to some of the large delays that we see.
Europeans take a somewhat different view from ``free flight''
on what they call 4-D control which tries to get around some of
that large queuing delay.
If we go to slots, slot controls at all of the major hub
airports (which I believe is where we will have to go,) these
slots have large economic value and the FAA should conduct slot
auctions much as the FCC conducts spectrum auctions.
In the short term, increased use of larger airplanes at
major hubs and more use of reliever airports will increase
system capacity. In the medium term, more runways at airports
with one or two runways, therefore simple airports, and
additional runways between existing ones which would require
new technology to allow closer spacing on landing, will help.
In summary, both NASA, the FAA and the airlines need to do
more in the development, operational evaluation and
certification of automatic aircraft sequencing, separation and
collision avoidance. The airlines must accept increased
avionics equipage and increased FAA regulations such as
mandatory avionics equipage and slot controls. The development
of an international spectrally efficient broadband wireless
data communications system is required for ADS-B and automatic
sequencing technology that NASA is looking at. It is essential
to most of the new capacity enhancing technology.
Actions the FAA is taking will not solve this problem, in
my opinion. DOD is developing a similar system for its own use.
Civil aviation needs an equally capable system. In my view, DOD
should be given the lead development responsibility for this
with the FAA in a support role, instead of the way it is today.
In my opinion, as a four-year associate administrator for
research, systems engineering and acquisition at the FAA, I
believe that the FAA should begin to implement these new
systems by outsourcing first oceanic and then high altitude
sectors to the private industry which would capitalize,
implement and operate portions of the ATC system using these
technologies, much as FAA does today with small airport
contract control towers. The precedent is already set for doing
this but not in the high altitude regions.
Automatic collision avoidance is routinely discussed in the
context of the Federal Highway Administration's intelligent
transportation program, I am sure you have heard testimony on
that, where it is extremely difficult to implement. However,
the Department of Transportation has never to my knowledge
discussed such a system for aviation where the technology is
much more mature and the problem is more tractable. This
technology will be required in the future to increase both the
safety and the capacity of the air transportation system, but
substantial funding for research at both NASA and the FAA would
be required before we could implement such a system.
That concludes my remarks this afternoon. I want to thank
you for the opportunity to appear before your committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Donohue follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Dr. Barnhart, Southwest Airlines in your presentation
showed that dramatically lower cancellation rate, lower than
any other major airline in each year between 1995 and 1999.
What are they doing that others are not?
Ms. Barnhart. I think the thing that this alludes to is the
fact that they are flying into less congested airports. The
chart I showed that had hub cancellation rates at the busy
airports, what is happening there is you have points during the
day at which more flights are scheduled in than there is
capacity in the best of times and so on days when weather
affects the airport and capacity is reduced, to be able to
handle operations at that airport, you must cancel some of the
flights. And what Southwest is doing differently is it is
avoiding to a large extent those airports.
Mr. Rogers. So they are finding capacity outside the hub
areas. There are existing runways out there at airports with
good terminals that are sitting there idle and Southwest is
finding those?
Ms. Barnhart. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. Why are not some of the others doing that?
Ms. Barnhart. Does anyone else want to answer to that?
Mr. Hansman. I think they are, but Southwest in our
observation, and Cindy and I have worked together on this, are
looking for opportunity, so they are sort of looking for
markets where they have very high reliability of service
because they value that in their system design.
They are not attempting to completely cover the U.S. so
there are a lot of places you cannot get to in the U.S. on
Southwest. So in some sense you can think of them sort of
creaming the system, they are looking for the good
opportunities, and they are really much more of a point-to-
point market, so they find two markets and fly to it so they
are not trying to cover the whole system.
Mr. Donohue. Mr. Chairman, if all of the airlines adopted
Southwest's strategy, then this N squared type of growth that
Professor Hansman talked about would absolutely saturate the
air traffic control system en route. And so they are taking
advantage of something that if all the airlines took it it
would be even worse, but for a different reason. All people
cannot play that game.
Mr. Rogers. Is there any alternative to the present
structure of the hub and spoke system that is realistic?
Ms. Barnhart. Well, as part of our Global Airline Industry
Program and visiting a number of airlines, there are things
that the airlines have been doing and investigating that move
to try to help ameliorate the problem. For example, they look
at introducing flights that jump hubs, avoid the hub, where
there is sufficient demand.
They have looked at introducing additional hubs, some refer
to them as mini-hubs. They have looked at trying to spread
arrivals and departures through the day at their hub, to spread
out these hubs and try to utilize capacity more evenly through
the day. And there are things like that that the hub and spoke
airlines are looking at.
Mr. Rogers. But we have seen no real results yet, have we?
Mr. Donohue. Mr. Chairman, if I could----
Mr. Rogers. Have we seen the results?
Mr. Donohue. Not yet.
Ms. Barnhart. Not yet. Well, perhaps in Newark.
Mr. ElSawy. There is also another result that happened and
that is the airlines are complementing their hub-to-hub
operations with feeder airlines, regional airlines, to
essentially provide that feeder system into the hub, to get the
point-to-point service as well.
Mr. Rogers. Tell me about it.
Mr. ElSawy. But that exacerbates the hub capacity. I know
you just experienced that.
Mr. Rogers. I mean, it is every time you fly.
Mr. ElSawy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. It used to be occasionally you had a problem
and now it is every time you fly it is an adventure.
Mr. ElSawy. But to Dr. Donohue's point, so now you have a
very active hub and spoke system, plus you have a very active
point-to-point system, so you are getting both effects at the
same time.
Mr. Donohue. The hub and spoke system happened almost
instantly after deregulation. It is compellingly economicly
efficient. It is very hard for the airlines not to want to do
the hub and spoke system. In Europe, where they have had a very
regulated structure, as they are slowly deregulating, they are
slowly developing a hub and spoke system, so I think that this
is kind of an economic drive in this direction, but I think
there is an interesting analogy. With deregulation in 1978, we
took the regulations off the airlines to find economic ways of
delivering service and that has helped generate a gigantic
growth that Professor Hansman talked about.
On the other hand, we did not deregulate the operation of
the air transportation services, which is the FAA's air
transportation management system. And just as they did in
California with energy, you cannot take one of the regulations
away and not take the other away. You start winding up with a
squeeze and I think that is part of what we are seeing.
Mr. Rogers. This is not that important a question, but did
we not see the hub and spoke system develop as the result of
the UPS/Fed Ex freight hub system development? Which came
first?
Mr. Donohue. I think the airlines came first.
Mr. Hansman. I think American Airlines--I think the
airlines started it, but it was really Fred Smith with Federal
Express who really looked at it as a way to cover the entire
network, so he was really the guy who came in with the
philosophy of we can cover the entire country with one hub,
with the Memphis hub.
Mr. Donohue. And now he has gone out to multiple hubs, with
satellite hubs.
Mr. Hansman. Well, I understand that. Once one hub becomes
saturated, then----
Mr. Donohue. Then you open satellite hubs.
Mr. Rogers. Would you like to comment on the significance
of airline over scheduling? You have sort of covered it,
talking about peak hour saturation, but airlines are scheduling
more flights into an airport than they can handle on even the
best of days.
How can they justify that and why is that taking place?
Mr. ElSawy. Well, I will take a shot at it to start.
I think the key point was made earlier this morning, that
in fact the rules as they are stated today, the competition
rules, essentially, make the opportunity costs for them
extremely high and so they have to play the game the way that
it is essentially structured. And so to the extent that the
constraints in the system today remain the same, I think you
will find that the behavior is the same. So you have to change
the constraints under which they are operating and change the
dialogue so the conversation becomes much more passenger
focused as I think you have indicated this morning.
Mr. Hansman. I think the other effect is that the airlines
know, the schedulers know, that all airplanes are not going to
arrive when they were scheduled, so they are actually banking
on a certain spread in the schedule because of the earlier
delays.
Mr. Rogers. Rather than banking, it is probably betting.
Mr. Hansman. Okay. Betting. Right. Yes. So in fact, it is
critical--if you look at the schedule structure you have these
waves that come in, but then there are lull periods between
them and you need the lulls to recover for the airplanes that
are delayed. If you did not have that, any delay right at the
beginning of the day would propagate through the system.
Mr. ElSawy. And, in fact, if I may add to that point,
because it is critical, if you look at LaGuardia, LaGuardia has
no lulls.
Mr. Hansman. That is the problem.
Mr. ElSawy. LaGuardia has no recovery time associated with
either the arrival banks or the departure banks and so you have
essentially 12 to 14-hour days just full out.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I mean, looking at your moving map of all
airline flights during that 24-hour period of time, except two
to four a.m., I did not see much window for anything. I mean,
it is all peak hours, it seems like, in looking at that.
Mr. Donohue. About 16 hours a day now is high tempo
operations.
Mr. Rogers. Yes. Well, how are you going to spread that
out? There is no place to spread it out.
Mr. Hansman. Yes. What I meant by that is if you looked in
more detail at like Chicago or one of the hubs, Dallas-Fort
Worth, you would actually see a wave of airplanes coming in,
that is the bank, then they would trade passengers and then the
wave goes out. And in between those waves, there is normally an
hour or two between waves, and so the airplanes that are
delayed sort of start to fill up the gap between them. So if
you were to have waves coming right on top of each other, the
airport would go into gridlock, which is sort of what is
happening in LaGuardia.
Mr. Rogers. So what is your conclusion?
Mr. Hansman. My conclusion is actually that the airlines
will schedule to--the airlines have to design a schedule that
will work in some sense and they appreciate now that the delays
are becoming a major factor, so we are seeing the airlines
start to value robustness in their schedules.
Mr. Rogers. What do you mean?
Mr. Hansman. What it means is that they--let me say it a
different way. In the U.S., traditionally we schedule to the
good weather capacity of the airports and we bet on good
weather. And when the weather is bad, we take the delays, but
it turns out you are making a value judgment that cost is more
important than reliability--that is a strategy that you can
use.
In Europe, for example, they schedule to bad weather
capacity, so they do not push their system as hard.
So we actually run many more people through our system than
the Europeans would run for the same network. So that is a
reasonable strategy, but the problem is that it is not very
robust--it breaks down easily. It is not very predictable, it
is not very robust. So if you have some bad weather, the system
starts to break down.
You can design a schedule which is more robust but is not
as efficient, so what I do is, I do not schedule the airplanes
to turn as quickly, to spend more time. And it is not as
efficient in terms of my utilization of resources, I cannot fly
as many flights, I cannot fly as many passengers, so
traditionally airlines in the U.S. have tried to schedule as
much capacity out of the system as they could. Because the
public is now starting to value reliability they are starting
to--the market respond to which will start to push them back to
schedules that have more reliability.
In fact, you are starting to see it if you look carefully
in the pricing. The prices for high reliability routes are
actually higher than the prices for low reliability routes to
the same destinations.
Mr. Donohue. I think the comparison between the U.S. system
and Europe is a very interesting one to look at because we
basically fly the same JCAO rules, we basically use the same
radars, communication equipment, but we employ them in a very
different way.
The Europeans value predictability in their transportation
system. They do not like delays, they like the trains to leave
on time and they like their airplanes to work the same way. So
they always assume the weather is bad and every airport is
virtually slot controlled. And so they do that, they are giving
up capacity and they are giving up profit margin and
profitability of the airlines but they regulate it.
We have a much different philosophy towards regulation and
so we have allowed the airlines to try to profit maximize,
which is not a bad thing, but they are going to push the system
as hard as they can, assuming the weather is good. And when it
is, it is great. But when the weather is not so good, then we
have delays, cancellations. But to some extent, they fill the
seats on the next day or the next plane and so it is not
necessarily--I mean, I hate to say this, but some of these
delays are not necessarily that bad for the airlines. The lack
of growth in capacity is not all that bad for the airlines
because you have rising demand and capped capacity and
therefore over time we are going to see rising prices.
Ms. Barnhart. I would like to just follow up with that. A
lot of the work we have done has been working with the airlines
in developing schedules and what I have observed over the last
few years is that there is increased awareness of this need for
reliability in the schedule, but it is a tradeoff.
What they are looking for is a schedule that is almost as
profitable but has more reliability, so they are not, of
course, going and saying let us adjust our schedule to maximize
reliability at any cost. I think it is important to keep that
in mind what is driving a lot of this--the airlines are well
aware of the issues, of course, but what is driving it are the
economics.
Mr. ElSawy. Just two comments on Europe. Europe, as Dr.
Donohue said, has a different approach to solving the problem,
so some of the things that they started to do, for example, is
they started to limit your ability to fly certain segment
lengths and they started to say that if the segment length is,
let us say, less than 100 miles, then you take the train, you
do not fly. Then they also started to limit the altitude at
which certain flights can go because what they are trying to
maximize is the ability of people to cross the continent.
So their approach to solving the problem is very, very
different than the approach that we have adopted here in the
U.S.
Mr. Rogers. Well, sometimes, perhaps now even most times,
the concerns of the traveling public are not being taken into
account and that is where we come in.
I guess we have driven or allowed--deregulation has given
the airlines the notion and idea, rightfully so, I guess, go
out there and make a living, go out and there do the best you
can to make some bucks for your stockholders. And that is what
they are doing and in most cases, in my opinion, in many parts
of the country, there is no really effective competition for an
airline.
You know, US Air, if you are going to fly out of
Pittsburgh, you may as well count on US Air. If you are going
to fly out of Atlanta, it is probably going to be Delta. And
Minneapolis, Northwest and so on. And they sort of leave each
other's hubs alone. They do not mess with Texas. And that means
that there is no effective competition.
So therefore they do not have to be nice to their
passengers and we are beginning to hear that in big time ways
here in the Congress and they expect something to happen.
What could we do to reinstill a sense of public service, if
you will, to the airlines' practices?
Mr. Donohue. Well, I will stick my foot in my mouth. I
think that we are going to have to put some regulation back in
the system. I think the deregulation that was done in 1978 was
a very good thing and it really allowed the system to grow, the
cost of air transportation has come down dramatically, I think
that is good. It is probably directly tied to deregulation.
Europe did it in about 1985 for the same reason. They finally
realized they had to do it to keep up with the benefits of
deregulation.
It works great when you are not near the capacity limits of
the system. And what has happened is that it has been, as John
said, very successful and now we are getting close to the
capacity limits of the system. We may be able to squeeze
another 20 or 30 percent out, experts differ, but it is on that
order. And then I think we are going to have to probably look
at some gentle re-regulation that tries to make up for the
excesses that can happen in a complete laissez faire process,
but not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Mr. Rogers. What kind of regulations would you think?
Mr. Donohue. Well, I think moving towards more coordinated
time schedules. Right now, the bankings are not coordinated. To
move towards what the Europeans call 4-D control, which
basically means you have avionics on the aircraft that can make
a four-dimensional contract. That means that airplane will be
where it says it will be in time and in space.
Now, aircraft have the electronics that can by and large do
that. And so then you very much try to regularize the aircraft
coming in and out so you do not have these big banks of delays
and you do not push the airport up to 85 or 95 percent of
maximum capacity where the queuing delays go out of sight like
Professor Hansman was showing you. You just do not let that
happen.
And, by the way, in the process of doing this and maybe by
auctioning these slots off because they do have great economic
value, you would encourage them to use bigger airplanes on some
of these big trunk routes. So they are going to give up some in
frequency to make up for emplanements because the limitations
we are seeing are operational limitations. And the airlines, as
John showed, and I think talked about, are going to smaller and
smaller airplanes. Now, that is economically beneficial to
them, but it is decreasing the nation's emplanement capacity.
And the regulation will be complex. There is no simple
formula. I do not have a simple answer, but I think that is the
direction that we are going to have to move. We are going to
have to start using some economic tools beyond what technology
can do because technology can only do so much.
Mr. ElSawy. I think in LaGuardia, for example, you can see
that to the extent that the value of the resource is zero, then
the demand will be infinite. I think there is no arguing that.
But a couple of things in terms of what can be done.
Clearly, as I had mentioned earlier, changing the rules as
to how airlines can in fact address schedule concerns,
especially in some of what I would consider to be the national
resource airports, those five or six airports that really
represent the backbone of the air transportation system is
absolutely key.
I think where you were heading this morning, Mr. Chairman,
about the disclosure of information and the sharing of
information on a timely basis is absolutely critical.
As Administrator Garvey mentioned this morning, the
collaborative decision making process that occurs on a daily
basis, this is a very tactical system, some of the things that
are happening have four-hour schedules, two-hour schedules and
then very tactical 20-minute implications and so forth and so
it is very important for the airlines and the FAA and the other
users of the system to be aware of the condition of the system
and where it is likely to be.
There is a forecasting element associated with it within
the four-hour period and the two-hour time window, so that in
fact the system can adjust. If you do not have that
information, if you are not participating in the process, if
the controllers and the pilots are not trained as to what the
implications are, the communications between the centers are
not effective and so everybody essentially stays in the dark.
And so the notion of more transparency in the information
sharing, more coordination and communication on a regular basis
is the only way in the short term that you are going to get out
of some of the anomalies that you see in the system because, as
Professor Hansman said, it does not take a big disruption, and
this is what I tried to show in the Newark scenario, it does
not take a big disruption to have a very huge effect on the
system. And so instead of just talking about capacity, we need
to talk about flexibility in the system as well as margin in
the system because unless you have that little margin, you are
not going to be able to adjust the operation.
Mr. Hansman. I think in getting to your question, what can
you do to sort of compel the airlines to really serve the
traveling public is a very tough question. And I am really torn
because there are two ways to go.
You can let the free market act and ultimately if the
service is bad enough then someone else will come in with
better service.
Mr. Rogers. If you cannot get the gate, you cannot compete.
Or prices will go up.
Mr. Hansman. So there is an issue of making sure that there
is competition, so that is one strategy.
Another strategy is to try to again put in some degree of
regulation which makes it unattractive for the airlines to act
in a way which does not serve the public. You have to be a
little bit careful there because--I mean, I sort of struggle
with what would you put in that would be effective but not
drive the prices through the roof? I mean, I could tell the
airlines, for example, you cannot over schedule your airplanes.
And, you know, that would be an easy thing to do. And the
airlines could do that and they would charge more for the
prices.
The real fundamental issue in terms of capacity, not
necessarily the service part, is that we have too many people
who want to go to a few places in the country and we can work
the hub thing to some extent, but you are not going to solve
New York, because there are too many people who want to go to
New York.
And so we are sort of in this space where we are running up
against our capacity limits and more people want to go there,
so do we provide the capacity to let them go or do we let the
market reset itself one way or the other and make it more
expensive to go?
And I do not have the answer. It is a struggle.
Mr. Rogers. If each of the major airlines established one
additional hub each, would that not go a long way toward
relieving the capacity problem?
Mr. Donohue. Some work has been done on that and talking
about actually putting new hubs where there is not new
congestion. You could say let us go to the middle of Kansas and
put a big hub there. That has not happened and one of the
reasons it has not happened is because it is not economically
viable for the airlines to do that.
The airport people----
Mr. Rogers. Cleveland is a hub.
Mr. Donohue. Cleveland is a hub. There is a rule of thumb
that the FAA uses in the airport program which they told me.
They said to be a hub airport, an airline needs about a 50
percent origin and destination passenger load to make it
economically attractive to make it a hub.
Now, why is that, I asked.
And they said that is because those tend to be walk up
business passengers who pay high fares and they carry the bulk
of the profit for that flight. And so if you are just trying to
put in a hub that has a lot of capacity. With law origin and
destination passengers, it will not happen without regulation.
In fact, the chairman of American Airlines one time said
instead of putting extra runways at O'Hare, he could always
just go and hub through Kansas City, it is already there, he
did not have to put any extra infrastructure in. But he does
not, yet. And the reason he does not is because there are not
enough people who want to go to Kansas City to have him operate
it economically for him as a hub. So there are these economic
incentives that are very much tied to the way in which the
network works.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. As we listened to folks this morning, pouring
more concrete was very high on their agenda. I listened to all
of you and even listening to them, it just strikes me that if
it is congestion we are dealing with, if we pour more concrete
in the most congested airports with the troubles we have in the
air congestion, that we would add to the problem rather than
solve anything.
Mr. Hansman. If it you look at it carefully, I did not
spend the time to go through it, it is really right now the
runways are the problem. They are the fundamental bottleneck
that we cannot redesign the air space around. So if it is only
safe to land 60 airplanes an hour due to wave vortex on a
runway, then that is all I can safely get into that airport.
And if you look, for example, you know, out there probably
right now airplanes are lined up about 400 miles outside of
Chicago already to get into Chicago because that is the
limiting resource and they know that if they get them any
tighter that they are going to run into a problem there.
So it is true, I think, that pouring concrete at the places
where people really want to go, you know, is something that you
need to do or, you know, ultimately the prices are going to go
up there. There are places like New York, I come from Boston,
Boston is a place where the local or the regional economies
will be capped, their growth will be capped because you just
cannot increase economic activity in the region because you
cannot support the travel which is necessary to maintain it. So
there is a coupling between economic development and airports
that I do not think we understand very well, which really
should be the root of where you decide you put your airport.
Mr. Donohue. There is another problem and I have recently
been looking at large hub airports and looking at the effective
marginal increase in capacity as you add another runway to a
large hub, like a Dallas-Fort Worth or Chicago O'Hare or
Schiphol in Europe. And what we see is that the marginal
increase in capacity keeps decreasing the more and more runways
you add at these big hub airports. And the model that Mr.
ElSawy showed the simulation of we also use at George Mason
University and we have looked at it and we say why is that
happening?
And what you see is that you start getting traffic
congestion problems on the ground. In fact, adding a new runway
can make it worse. You add an extra runway, you put more planes
there, they all have to go across this particular node on the
airport to get to where the gates are. And then they have their
own queuing problem, as Professor Hansman said. There is a
series of queues in this problem. So you can just shift the
problem from one place to another, any one of them will stop
the flow and produce the cork.
So I see the strategy, and Southwest is kind of doing this,
of going to the Manchesters and the Providences to serve Boston
and I think that is what is going to happen, actually, for the
foreseeable future. It is not a bad strategy because it gets
them out of the air space, because the air space also gets
congested, gives them different parking lots, different roads.
As Professor Hansman said, you can clog up Boston or any of
these places or Newark or LaGuardia from the road system as
well.
So we really have to, I think, in some sense distribute
where we put the airports, probably using existing reliever
airports, putting more infrastructure into them initially until
they get filled. I mean, they will fill up, too, but that is
what I said in my testimony. I think that is probably the best
near-term strategy we have, is investing in the airports like
the Manchesters and the Providences all over the country.
It is still a hub in a sense, but now it is like a mega
hub. It is like Washington, D.C. where we have three major
airports. And, by the way, we have pretty good air service in
Washington, D.C. because we are fortunate to have three
airports that are distributed around the city that serve our
needs.
Mr. Sabo. In terms of peak demand, it just seems to me that
if we simply build more runways for them there is no way they
start adding bigger planes.
Mr. Donohue. That is a tradeoff.
Mr. Hansman. That is one of the questions, how do you
compel people to add bigger airplanes. I think if you go look
at Dallas-Fort Worth, at Dallas-Fort Worth they added an extra
runway 12 years ago or something like that.
Mr. Donohue. No, just recently, about three years ago, four
years ago.
Mr. Hansman. Okay. But if you actually look at the delays
before and after the new runway, they are actually about the
same. So what will happen is that the airlines that operate out
of those airports will just expand their schedules to take
advantage of the capacity.
Now, you can say that that is a bad thing or you can say I
am serving a lot more people. And I am not sure what the right
trade off on it is, but what it tells you, though, is that the
airlines will not schedule too much delay. If they see the
schedule start to break down, they will back off, one way or
the other.
Mr. Donohue. But one of the problems with Dallas-Fort Worth
is they are adding independent runways. To be an independent
runway for the FAA, you have to have 4300 feet spacing for
parallel independent arrivals, which is what you want to do in
an airport today. That is almost a mile. So as you add more and
more runways, the taxi time to get from where you land to where
you want to go is increasing by one mile chunks at a time and
then typically you have to cross active runways, which means
they have to slow down the arrival rate on an active runway to
let traffic cross.
Mr. Sabo. One of our growing problems is runway incursions.
Mr. Donohue. And we are having a serious problem with
runway excursions. And so people are talking about putting
light bars, active traffic control. The problem is we cannot
put overpasses and underpasses--the way we would deal with this
with surface transportation would be to build underpasses but
think of a 747 wing span. You know, if you have 300-foot span
underpasses so you can put 700,000 pound point sources over the
top, civil engineers would love to take that on, but it is not
an inexpensive underpass. And then Airbus will build a bigger
airplane.
So we actually start getting into this ground
transportation problem at some point, so just adding more
runways to the big mega hubs, in my view, is diminishing
returns. So somehow, like in communication, we went from the
big trunk systems to the Internet and we started distributing
the loads because we were finding that we were clogging up the
gateways, the big switching networks, with big main trunk
systems and so I think the same sort of thing is going to
happen here. We are going to have to start distributing where
these airports are, but recognizing the population density is
not distributed. So just putting a big hub in Wichita, Kansas
is not necessarily going to help.
Mr. ElSawy. As a matter of fact, there was a recent study
by RAND that showed the population shifts and I am sure you are
aware, you can see precisely that effect, where the population
shifts are continuing to go to the eastern United States and to
the West Coast and so that trend is likely going to increase
and so you see people flying to where they live and work and so
forth. And so the notion of distributing that load to smaller
and smaller airports is, I think, a strategy that will emerge,
it is just that the market has not really justified it yet.
Mr. Sabo. I sit here looking at some data I have on 30
airports and then I start--and LaGuardia does not show up on it
and it is from airports participating in ACI monthly airport
traffic statistics collection.
How big is LaGuardia? Is the reason they are not on my
chart because they do not participate with the other airports?
Mr. ElSawy. It is probably a list of the smaller airports.
I am really not sure.
Mr. Sabo. No, it is Atlanta, Chicago, everything.
Mr. Donohue. LaGuardia is in the top 15 at least for
operations, maybe in the top ten.
Mr. Sabo. They are not on this list. There must be a
reason. I have been confused all day looking at this.
Mr. Hansman. LaGuardia is not one of the biggest, but it
has a prime real estate location. So in fact it is kind of like
Washington National. It was one of the early airports that was
close in to the city, they were on the water, they really did
not have much room to grow.
Mr. Sabo. How many runways do they have?
Mr. ElSawy. They have two.
Mr. Hansman. They have two. There are just two runways, but
lots of people want to go there and they are willing to pay--
they are shuttle passengers who are very high revenue so that
is why airlines want to run in there.
Mr. Sabo. One is passenger total, the other is landings and
takeoffs each day and unless there are some initials that I do
not understand----
Mr. Hansman. It should be LGA.
Mr. Donohue. LGA. Yes.
Mr. Sabo. They are not on here.
Mr. Hansman. I can give you an estimate.
Mr. Sabo. You know, JFK----
Mr. Donohue. They do as much business as JFK, as I recall.
Their operational rate is about the same as JFK and Newark.
Mr. Sabo. Well, JFK is 21st internationally. Newark does
not--it is 22nd in landings.
Mr. Donohue. LaGuardia should be right very close to those
other airports.
Mr. Hansman. I only have 1995 data.
Mr. Sabo. This is 1999.
Mr. Hansman. Okay. The 1995 data I have shows LaGuardia at
about 280,000 operations, I am not sure, but it is about the
same level of operations as JFK or Houston.
Mr. Donohue. Right. But it has fewer runways than they do.
Mr. Hansman. This is the 1995 data and this shows LaGuardia
here. This is actually total operations on the bottom and
delayed flights and this is that curve I was showing you, that
capacity demand curve, and you can see at the time these were
the bad airports, San Francisco, LaGuardia, Newark, St. Louis
and Boston. And you can see that the good weather airports like
Las Vegas and Honolulu are below the curve. And the strategy
Southwest uses is to fly into those airports that have
relatively low delays so that they have a much more reliable
schedule.
Mr. Donohue. Newark, LaGuardia and JFK also have another
problem, they are very close together. They are like less than
10 miles from each other, so the air space also gets extremely
complicated. Not only do they have runway delay queuing
problems, they have airspace interaction problems between three
airports. That is a very complicated piece of real estate.
Mr. Hansman. These are radar tracks into and out of the New
York area, so LaGuardia is up here, Kennedy is here.
Mr. Sabo. Do they interfere with each other then?
Mr. ElSawy. Oh, sure. Absolutely.
Mr. Donohue. They have to deconflict. They have to make
sure they do not run into each other.
Mr. Hansman. That is one of the problems, that they do not
have a lot of flexibility. They are carefully designed not to
interfere with each other. But, as a result, when you do get
bad weather in the New York metro area, then you have to shut
down the flow because you cannot move it because you will
interact with one of the other airports.
Mr. ElSawy. As a matter of fact, there is a routine
rotation of the runway configurations that are used in the New
York airports, as one runway changes, the others have to shift
in order to accommodate the flow in and out of the airport.
This also is a very good indication of why that air space
redesign activity that we talked about this morning are
critical.
Obviously, with air space redesign, you also have noise
issues and environmental issues, but there are ways to in fact
use the existing approved routes in a more efficient way and
allow for the separation of some of the choke points that were
discussed this morning. So those two things are happening right
now and that is why the commitment this morning from NATCA, I
think, and the FAA was so critical because we have to start
deconflicting some of those streams, especially in the New York
area.
Ms. Barnhart. Actually, we had a speaker at MIT who was
talking about designing the aircraft routes for their start-up
airline out of JFK. And one of their strategies was to fly at a
lower altitude, which is more costly, but they said that the
fact that they are able to depart more quickly and get out
there easily negated the higher cost of flying.
Mr. Donohue. ConAir is doing the same thing in Cleveland
and they are flying low to get out and then they will request
an en route climb.
Mr. ElSawy. The other thing you will see in New York is
that especially on the departures instead of departing
everybody to the same fix in the air space, they are also
trying to identify what is called a fan out of those fixes so
you can go to multiple places and get some efficiency from that
as well.
Mr. Sabo. To what degree in the major airports--to what
degree does general aviation use those major airports? To what
degree?
Mr. ElSawy. Well, I know, for example, that in LaGuardia,
30 percent of operations are carrying 10 percent of the
passengers. That is just a statistic I know for LaGuardia in
particular. I think the issue is less general aviation per se
but more the capability of the aircraft that are flying into
the various streams. So, for example, if you have a jet behind
a turbo prop behind a smaller aircraft in front of another jet,
what you find is that because of the physics of flight and
because of how safety considerations and the speed
considerations and wave vortex and so forth, that mixture in
the stream of aircraft using that runway has a very large
effect on how effectively you can use that runway.
And, as a result, as we start talking about new aircraft,
new capabilities, it is very important to start increasing the
navigational capability of the aircraft by incentivizing
equipage to a higher level of equipage.
Dr. Donohue talked about communication systems,
navigational systems, but also some of the work on wake vortex
protection, for example, becomes very important because that
governs how close you are and also the speeds at which you can
use the airports.
Mr. Donohue. To add to that, many airports actually have
some short runways which they tend to use for general aviation,
so they do not get in the stream. You do not have a 70-knot
landing speed Cessna 172, arriving behind a 130-knot landing
speed, a Boeing 777 or something like that. So they will put
them off on a separate runway.
What is happening with some of this general aviation
activity, though, is that they are moving more to jets and even
some of the propeller planes that were in the regional feeder
airlines are moving to RJs and they both require longer
runways. And so now they are tending to want to move into the
mainstream runways because they need jet-like landing distances
and they are decreasing the emplanement capacity. I mean, even
an RJ, which is not a general aviation issue, but it is a 30-
passenger or a 50-passenger jet that takes up a whole slot in
the queue. It is great for flexibility and this goes back to
the regulation issue. I asked an airline executive, I said why
are you buying more RJs going through your hub?
This was when I was at the FAA and they were hammering me
for not giving them more modernization. And I started figuring
this out and I said, well, you are buying RJs, you are flowing
them in there, you are decreasing enplanement at your major
hub.
And his answer to me was because we make money at it, okay?
And we have good profit on those RJs. And his view was that the
FAA should give them the capacity.
Well, it turns out there are some physical limitations.
There is only so much capacity, with all the technology you
have you can give them. And so this is the tension I see
between public policy, regulation and the benefits of
deregulation and economic incentives.
Mr. Hansman. Also in answer to your question, there are not
a lot of GA airplanes. The problem is not really the GA
airplanes. There are a lot of turbo props or smaller airplanes,
but they are feeding from the smaller communities. So, again,
when we go back and look at it in terms of serving the public,
you do not want to cut off the smaller community, so it is a
real trade. So it varies, but the really heavily loaded
airports like LaGuardia you do not see a lot of GA traffic.
Mr. ElSawy. The other point that I would like to make, if
you remember Professor Hansman's procedural protection zone
that was in the chart? Air traffic control has clearly the
pilot in command, has the air traffic controller providing
separation assurance, and then it has a number of systems that
provide for backup so that any failure in the system is a very
gradual failure so you do not see catastrophic failures.
One of the critical elements of that is that air traffic
control and flying is very procedural and so one of the things
that happened is as soon as you enter into that procedural
zone, there are lots of human factors, training and so forth.
And one of the issues that we are working, for example, with
NATCA on is that to the extent that you can have similar
procedures for all the traffic flowing in a particular area,
then that air traffic controller will be able to handle it with
a certain level of efficiency higher than the efficiency that
would exist if they had to constantly modify the procedures.
And so as a result, what you find is that the procedures
will operate at the lowest common denominator as opposed to the
most efficient way of doing it to provide for that procedural
integrity in the system and that is something that I do not
think that we want to take away.
On the contrary, I would say let us increase the
navigational and communication capacity of the aircraft to
provide procedural integrity because you never want to take
that away.
Mr. Sabo. I always thought the Osprey technology was going
to probably help us out.
Mr. Hansman. Do not hold your breath.
Mr. Sabo. Does not sound very good.
Mr. Donohue. It has a ways to go.
Closing Remarks
Mr. Rogers. Well, thank you, lady and gentlemen for your
very interesting testimony and helpful testimony and your
research that you have brought to us. We appreciate your
testimony and we will likely call upon you again at some point
in time, with your willingness.
Thank you very much.
Wednesday, March 28, 2001.
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
MANAGEMENT ISSUES
WITNESSES
JANE F. GARVEY, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
CAROL CARMODY, ACTING CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
KEITH D. DeBERRY, PROFESSIONAL AIRWAYS SYSTEMS SPECIALISTS, AVIATION
SAFETY INSPECTOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
ROBERT KERNER, PROFESSIONAL AIRWAYS SYSTEMS SPECIALISTS, AVIATION
SAFETY INSPECTOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
JOHN P. FISHER, PRESIDENT, FAA CONFERENCE, FEDERAL MANAGERS ASSOCIATION
ARTHUR C. EICKENBERG, FAA CONFERENCE, FEDERAL MANAGERS ASSOCIATION
Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. The Committee will be in order.
Good morning to everyone. This morning we will receive
testimony on management issues within the Federal Aviation
Administration, by far the largest operating agency under this
Subcommittee's jurisdiction and the one with some of the
biggest and most intractable problems.
Today I guess could be considered chapter two or three in
the continuing saga of airline service in this country and the
delays and the unacceptable cancellations that we are seeing in
the business today.
As we begin this hearing, let me again say at the outset
that we expect answers and plain talk today, and if you are
part of the problem of airline delays and cancellations wherein
one out of every four flights is either canceled or delayed, if
you are a part of the problem we want to talk to you in nice,
but very blunt terms.
We do not want to hear fluff today or filibusters. We want
to talk turkey. We are going to get to the bottom of things. If
you are part of the industry's part of the problem, then you
have a problem from this Subcommittee, and we will stay with
you until something freezes over.
You will notice to my rear that we have placed on a placard
the promises that were made by six witnesses who testified
before us a couple of weeks ago on airline delays, all major
portions of the industry from the pilots to the controllers to
the FAA to the industry and to the Inspector General of the
department. They each gave us five promises that they would
perform or see performed that would contribute to the easing of
the problem.
We have placed those on this board and placed them
permanently in this hearing room for a purpose, and that is to
remind them and all of us that these promises were made to the
Congress, to the people of the country and that we expect that
these promises will be fulfilled as quickly as humanly
possible.
This panel that made these promises will be reinvited to
appear before the committee in a short while, and we will grade
them on how well or how bad they have done in upholding the
promises that they made, and we will be inviting them back
periodically, every month or six weeks or so, until we see some
solutions to the unacceptable delays and rude service that
airlines are trying to furnish the American people today, so
just bear that in mind. If you are a part of this board, then
you are going to have repeat appearances. Ms. Garvey, you are
one of the fabulous six.
Now, as I said, this agency, FAA, is the biggest agency
under the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee. I know it is
difficult to get a 50,000 person agency to move quickly or to
follow the instructions of its political leaders. I spent many
years over on my other Subcommittee that I chaired overseeing
the Justice Department, but especially the INS, Immigration
Service, and we saw this kind of problem all the while in that
agency, an agency unresponsive to its political leaders.
I am here to tell you if there is a problem in the FAA, as
I think there is, of the leadership's instructions and
directions not being followed that day has come and gone. If
there is somebody within the agency that is not doing their
job, as I have told the director, the Administrator, we are not
above on this subcommittee writing into the appropriations bill
that none of these funds shall be used to pay the salary of Joe
Dokes.
So let the word go forth that you will obey the directions
of the leadership of this agency. I do not want anyone to come
to me later and say well, I did not know you meant it. If that
language appears in one of these appropriations bills that the
salary of some of you may not be paid, remember this day.
I want the Administrator's directions to be followed all
the way down the line, and if anybody has a problem with that
you better come see us pretty quick because we expect
accountability in this agency. We expected accountability in
the INS. It did not happen, and this year I am hopeful that we
will pass the bill that will abolish the INS and replace it
with somebody who can do the job.
I am saying to you here in the FAA if you cannot do the
job, believe me, we will find somebody that will. Whatever the
job you have, we aim to be sure that this problem with the
American people by the millions being put out and business lost
and lives disrupted and families separated by airline delays
and cancellations, if the FAA is contributing to that problem
that is the one agency, it being a government agency whose
funds we appropriate, that I am sure this subcommittee is going
to be sure is straightened out.
Are we clear? Anybody got a question? Performance and
accountability is what we expect. It is what we are paying for.
It is what the taxpayers are paying for, and it is what we are
going to demand from this agency from this point on as long as
I have a say on this subcommittee.
We personally asked Administrator Garvey to bring her top
management team here today. Those in the room that are a part
of that team, would you raise your hand for us? I want them to
know that all of this is serious business. I am a new chairman
of this subcommittee, and if I have anything to say about it it
is going to be a new day at this agency.
We are going to be watching agency heads and top executives
who do not meet their performance goals. We are going to hold
feet to the fire. When the FAA does well, we will applaud them,
and the managers' bonuses will be forthcoming and additional
staff will be there if you need it.
When you do not perform, there will be consequences. That
has not been the case in the past, and perhaps the nest has
gotten nice and cozy. Budgets will be scrutinized, bonuses
withheld, staff withdrawn, transfers imminent. Consequences
will be felt not as punishment, but as an incentive to the rest
of you to get with it.
When the Inspector General was up here three weeks ago we
asked him a simple question. If you could change only one thing
at the FAA, what would you change? The thing he picked? Not
more money. Not better equipment. Not a bigger staff. The thing
he picked was to begin holding top agency officials accountable
for their actions or their inactions.
The amazing thing is that the previous IG said the same
thing in 1996, so we are going to look into the agency's
performance in the hearing today and in the days and months to
come. We are going to hold it up to the light. We are going to
take a good, hard look at how things are being done and who is
doing it and who is not doing it.
I want names, ranks and serial numbers of those who are not
doing their job, madam and the rest of you, and then we will
see whether the FAA is using bonuses and other management tools
to properly motivate individuals to do a better job. If not, we
might be able to help you out with that.
We will also receive testimony this morning on a number of
concerns from field personnel in both air traffic services and
aviation safety oversight. We have air traffic control
supervisors from Florida, maintenance inspectors form Ohio and
Kentucky. I especially appreciate these witnesses taking their
time to come here to give us a perspective of what their work
is like in the field with FAA.
It is a long chain of command from the FAA administrator
down to the maintenance inspector in Cleveland. I know
sometimes concerns have a hard time working their way up that
long chain. We hope we can cut through some of that bureaucracy
today and hear directly from some of them about some of their
problems.
Introduction of Witnesses
We want to welcome all the witnesses today, the Honorable
Jane Garvey, FAA Administrator, who is now about three and a
half years into your five year fixed term; the Honorable Carol
Carmody. The acting chairman of the National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB); Keith DeBerry and Robert Kerner, both
aviation safety inspectors representing the Professional
Airways Systems Specialists, PASS; John Fisher and Arthur
Eickenberg, air traffic control supervisors, representing the
FAA Conference of the Federal Managers Association.
We want to hear your oral testimony presented in the same
order I just introduced you, and as soon as we hear form my
colleague on the other side we would love to hear you summarize
your testimony. Your written statement will be made a part of
the record.
Mr. Sabo?
Opening Remarks of Mr. Sabo
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me welcome the
Administrator and all the other people testifying today. I look
forward to hearing your comments.
To the Administrator I would simply say that I think all of
us over the years have had questions about the FAA. We find
programs have had difficulty being concluded. On the other
hand, also let me say I have been tremendously impressed by the
work you do, and I look forward to hearing from you and the
other witnesses this morning. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. We have a vote on the Floor that is close to
being concluded, so we must go to the Floor and cast our votes.
We will recess the hearing momentarily.
[Recess.]
FAA Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. The hearing will be in order.
Mrs. Garvey, we would love to hear your statement.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you very much for allowing me to appear before this committee.
I am looking forward to it.
I do want to make note of our assignments, and I will note
that Chip Barclay and I were the only two who took on six, so I
am hoping that there may be a little extra credit in that, Mr.
Chairman, if that is possible.
Definition of Delays
I will tell you that as we promised, we have a definition
of delays, which I will submit for the record, and I know we
will be back to talk about all of those other issues, but good
work is going on in each one of those areas.
FAA Workforce and Mission
I will also mention, Mr. Chairman, that this morning in the
audience, in addition to members of the FAA management team, we
also have controllers. We have some of the technicians here
and, of course, the inspectors from our flight service
activities. Many of them actually own a piece of those
initiatives, so I thought it was important that they be here,
but I will also add that all of them are accountable and
responsible for delivering the essential services that really
make up the mission of the FAA.
As you noted, Mr. Chairman, I have been at the FAA for
slightly over three years. In that period of time I have seen
some good progress, some results, but it is absolutely clear,
and certainly from your comments, too, this morning, there is a
great deal more we need to do.
We are taking on an enormous challenge at this agency. We
are advancing technology at the same time we are running a 24
hour a day operation and doing it safely, and we are doing that
in the midst of some very significant management changes, so
that is no small task. My philosophy in approaching these
challenges is essentially threefold. First of all, to value the
front line workers who have a great deal to contribute. They
are smart, they are professional, and they care deeply about
what they do. As I look back at every initiative over the last
three years, any time we have been successful it is because it
has been a joint effort between the management team and the
unions and the employees who really make up the front line, so
engaging that work force is very, very important.
Secondly, focusing on data and risk analysis to target our
resources. It is very easy in the public sector to get pulled
in many different directions. There are a lot of agendas out
there, a lot of issues that are very, very important. We need
to keep reminding ourselves that we need to look at the data to
establish the priorities that we need to be focused on, and we
need to target our resources.
Runway Incursions
A good case in point is the runway safety program. Thanks
very much to the efforts of this committee, last year we were
able to engage Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and also
Mitre Corporation to look at all of the runway incursions that
have happened since 1997, and as a result of that work we have
been able to group those into various risk categories. That is
going to allow us to really target our resources on the
category that presents the greatest risk. We know those growing
numbers are a concern not only to us, but they are certainly a
concern to the NTSB and to the Inspector General as well, so we
appreciate the kind of support we have gotten from the
committee for those efforts.
Safer Skies
Secondly, our safer skies agenda, which is something that
we have really come up with the industry, which again focuses
our resources, targets our resources on the top priorities
where we can get the greatest safety benefit. I think that
approach is working well. That approach allows us to use the
data and also to focus our resources, and I think that is very
important.
FAA Reform
Finally, we have heard a great deal from Congress about the
need for the FAA to be more businesslike, and we have heard
that from the public as well. The efforts that we have underway
on cost accounting, the efforts that we have underway on
acquisition reform, establishing metrics, measuring our
performance, are critical and are important, and we absolutely
must stay the course on those efforts.
I want to give a little bit of credit here to Donna McLean,
who is our Chief Financial Officer and who every month
publishes with the help of each line of business a monthly
performance report. We just started doing this recently.
Both she and Dan Mehan, who is our Chief Information
Officer, host discussions every month where we track the
performance to date looking at all the critical corporate
projects. It also allows us to take a look at where we are with
our budget and where we are with our staffing needs. We think
this has been a good and a very, very helpful management tool.
We are asking people to take on more responsibilities. We
are asking them in many ways to change the way we do business,
and in some cases we are asking them to give up some very long
held assumptions. I know that is difficult, but I think the
effort is absolutely essential and absolutely important.
As I said in the beginning, we still have a long way to go.
These five years are going very, very quickly when I realize
how much we want to accomplish. I think it is important to go
back to a comment that was made earlier, and that is that in
spite of all the challenges that we have we really should never
lose sight of the extraordinary work that the men and women of
this agency do.
Seattle Earthquake
I know in the midst of the recent earthquake in Seattle
there were two controllers who were on duty, and they did not
leave the tower until they were able to bring every plane down
safely. I was particularly struck by the comments in the
interviews after the earthquake, and one of the controllers
said that he really credited the technicians. He credited the
managers. He credited his colleagues. He said, you know,
ultimately I was just doing my job.
I think that is your challenge to us; to do our job well,
to provide an aviation system that is the safest and the most
efficient in the world. We take that challenge on eagerly, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement and biography of Jane Garvey
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Controller Recognition At Seattle Tower
Mr. Rogers. What are their names?
Ms. Garvey. Brian and Ben are both here. They are sitting
in the back.
Mr. Rogers. Would you stand up so we can see you?
Both of you, gentlemen, from the Congress of the United
States and the people of this country, we appreciate your duty
and your attendance to your duty under very severe
circumstances. We thank you. Ms. Carmody.
NTSB Opening Statement
Ms. Carmody. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I am
Carol Carmody from the National Transportation Safety Board,
and I am here this morning to provide testimony as requested by
the committee on aviation safety issues.
Runway Incursions and FAA Oversight
The tremendous expansion in the commercial and general
aviation fleets are straining the air traffic system. Extreme
vigilance and additional oversight is needed to prevent any
catastrophic accidents from occurring. The Board cannot
emphasize strongly enough that a number of issues must be
addressed promptly to prevent aviation catastrophes as
operations increase. I would like to discuss a few of those
today; runway incursions, errors committed by air traffic
controllers and FAA oversight of the industry.
First, as Ms. Garvey mentioned, runway incursions have been
steadily increasing for the last few years from 200 in 1994,
322 in 1999, 429 last year. Already this year through March we
have 81 reported, which is higher than the same period last
year. The possibility for catastrophe only increases with time
if the number of errors is not reduced.
Many of the runway incursions we have looked at over the
past year all around the country involve two or more large
commercial aircraft, and the possibility for loss of life is
very sobering. Two years ago our then chairman, Jim Hall, said
to this committee, ``The Safety Board is concerned that FAA
efforts to address runway incursions through technology fall
short of what is needed.''
That is still our position today. The runway incursion
issue has been with the Board since 1990 when we made it one of
our top ten, so to speak, one of our most wanted issues. We
have issued more than 100 safety recommendations on runway
incursions since 1973. Just last summer we had a special
hearing on runway incursion at the Board and issued still more
recommendations. Our approach at that time was since technology
had not closed the gap, we looked at some operational
improvements and operational suggestions we thought would
perhaps retard the increase in runway incursions.
Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS)
FAA has responded. They are evaluating those responses, but
the crux or their program still seems to be the AMASS. This is
the airport movement system to detect movement on a runway of
either vehicles, aircraft or departing or arriving aircraft.
There is a long history with the FAA and AMASS, and it is
detailed in my lengthy testimony so I will not go through it
again now, but in 1991 the Board made the first recommendation
to the FAA to expedite development of this system. Just last
year, nine years later, the Board determined that AMASS would
no longer meet the safety standards set forth by the FAA when
the system was initiated.
Forty of the systems have been installed around the
country, but they are not operational yet because the test and
evaluation phase has not been completed. We understand testing
has been going on of the software in San Francisco, and we also
understand that has not been successful, so testing is still
going on.
With respect to airports with lower activities, FAA is
looking at a number of ASDE systems, airport surface detection
systems, and has recently signed a contract to initiate work.
Nevertheless, we are here ten years after the fact, ten
years after the initiation of the AMASS project, with still no
operational surface detection system in the airports. We think
the FAA must give this immediate attention. They must set some
deadlines, determine dates for establishing service at the
airports and hold to those. We think this is very, very
important.
Air Traffic Control Operational Errors
Moving on to the violations, on January 17, 2001, the FAA
and National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) signed
a memorandum of understanding, which I will call an MOU, to
modify existing FAA procedures for identifying operational
errors. Operational errors occur when an air traffic controller
fails to ensure that separation standards are maintained
between aircraft.
The MOU establishes a new subcategory of operational errors
and calls them technical violations. It precludes the FAA from
requiring controllers to take remedial training following a
technical violation. It also prohibits the FAA from suspending
or revoking control tower operator licenses and air traffic
facility ratings in response to demonstrated performance
problems.
According to the MOU, the FAA defines a technical violation
as any operational error in which the aircraft involved pass
each other with less than 80 percent of the standard
separation. The Safety Board is concerned that this provision
does not take into account the circumstances causing such an
error, and that it could result in the classification of a
clearly unsafe instance as merely a technical violation.
Several serious instances have been classified this year as
technical violations rather than operational errors, and the
controllers involved have not been subject to any remedial
training or adverse action. If the FAA believes that current
standards are overly restrictive and can be reduced safely, it
would have been prudent to have performed the appropriate
analyses and make the results available before implementation.
In February the entire Board, by letter, expressed our
concern to the FAA about this memorandum, and the FAA has come
over and briefed us. They have described the analytical system
they have put in place to evaluate the operational errors. We
think this is a very good way to go. We think it should have
been done before the system was implemented, but we think they
are on the right track.
We would expect, however, that assessment would identify
only those errors and deviations that resulted from very minor
misjudgments and call those technical violations.
Further, the MOU, as I said, bars the FAA from revoking or
suspending controller, airman certificates, and facility
ratings as a means of addressing performance deficiencies. It
is difficult for us to discern the safety benefits of the FAA
prospectively waiving the right to suspend or revoke facility
ratings or initiate certificate action against a controller who
demonstrates serious performance deficiencies.
Industry Oversight
With respect to FAA oversight of the industry, this has
been the subject of some concern to the Board for quite a
while; most recently in the ValuJet accident. Our
recommendations indicated that there were some deficiencies in
FAA oversight of the carrier.
At that time, FAA initiated a 90 day review of their
system, and they came up with the conclusion that it needed
overhauling. They developed the ATOS system, which is the air
transportation oversight system. This is their new method of
evaluating, looking at, and assessing the compliance of
carriers.
The concept is to collect information, allocate inspectors
and other resources, look for trends and then take action
resulting from those trends. I understand it currently includes
ten major airlines. The FAA has developed a plan to extend ATOS
to the other carriers, but evidently decided not to proceed
until ATOS is fully developed and the necessary resources were
available.
The Safety Board has concerns that some of the operators
that might benefit the most from additional scrutiny are not
getting it. I think the major carriers probably get a fair
amount of scrutiny now, so there is some concern that the
others may be needing it.
Air Transportation Oversight System
I will say the Safety Board is examining ATOS very, very
closely as part of two ongoing investigations. One is the
Little Rock accident involving American Airlines, and the other
is the Alaska Airlines accident last year in California. We
will have more to say about this subject at some time. At this
point, since it is an ongoing investigation, I cannot give any
specific details.
However, I will point out that in the hearing we had on
Alaska Airlines the FAA staff indicated that the ATOS would not
have detected some of the changes in the Alaskan Airlines'
maintenance practices. Those are the maintenance practices
which affected the horizontal stabilizer jacks assembly and
that may have resulted in the accelerated wear. It is of some
concern if ATOS was the system that was supposed to be
detecting deficiencies, it may have missed a big one there.
In any event, we are going to be doing more work on ATOS,
and we will be keeping the committee informed of that as we go
along.
That concludes my statement at this time, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement and biography of Carol Carmody
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
PASS (DeBerry) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much. Mr. DeBerry.
Mr. DeBerry. Good morning, Chairman Rogers, Congressman
Sabo, Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss funding and
safety for the FAA's Flight Standards Division. I am Keith
DeBerry, a representative of the Professional Airways Systems
Specialists and an aviation safety inspector in Louisville,
Kentucky.
Flight Standards Workforce
The Flight Standards work force enforces civil aviation
safety regulations and standards for providing governmental
oversight through daily worldwide surveillance of air carrier
operations and maintenance. This monumental task can only be
accomplished by ensuring Flight Standards has a sufficient
number of highly trained inspectors who are provided the proper
funds to accomplish our ultimate task, to ensure the continued
safety of the flying public.
As a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant with 25 years
of aircraft maintenance experience and as a past director of
maintenance for the United States Air Force Thunderbirds, I
understand the need for aviation safety. As an inspector, I
have lived through the FAA's changes in priority, a robust
budget following the ValuJet accident and the current bare
bones funding.
While Congress has appropriated funds to meet the FAA's
request for the Flight Standards Division, the money is being
allocated for other priorities. As a result, the money for the
inspectors to complete their job has decreased while aviation
demand has increased significantly.
As funds have dwindled for us to conduct our jobs, the
numbers of required inspections mandated by Congress has
continued to grow. More than half the needed certifications,
surveillance, enforcement or compliance oversight is not being
accomplished due to reduced funding. Funding levels are so
anemic that office managers across the country, fearing funding
will be exhausted in the latter part of the year, are pushing
inspectors to complete their Congressionally mandated
inspections in the early part of the year. This equates to
intent surveillance for the first two quarters with little or
no surveillance the last two quarters of the year. Under
current budget constraints, inspectors cannot conduct important
surveillance if it requires travel to a site away from the
inspector's home base. In a recent situation, if I could have
personally witnessed the final run through for a particular
aircraft that had main landing gear problems, the public's best
interests could have been better served.
flight standards travel and training
Because of a lack of travel funds, I was unable to visually
inspect the aircraft. While I will review the paperwork, I
still have a nagging doubt in my mind because I was not in
attendance to observe the actual testing while the plane was on
jacks and the gear was being ran through its paces.
Since 1998, training funds for Flights Standards has been
significantly reduced. Without regular technical training,
inspectors will not be able to function in this highly complex
and ever changing and growing environment. How can an inspector
such as myself be the front line of safety for the American
flying public without regular, up-to-date training?
air transportation oversight system
At the request of Congress, the FAA developed a safety
system approach to oversight for the air carrier industry. The
air transportation oversight system, commonly referred to as
ATOS, was designed to use a proactive method to identify safety
trends and determine the root causes of deficiencies or
problems. The current ATOS inspection system has a significant
fault; the lack of framework for oversight of out sourcing by
the air carriers.
Most American air carriers out source some or all of their
aircraft maintenance, such as de-icing, refueling, ground
handling, aircraft cleaning, and training. Until proper ATOS
tools are developed and implemented to perform adequate out
sourcing surveillance, this growing area will not receive the
proper oversight it demands.
In conclusion, I would ask this subcommittee to send a
message to the FAA that safety is its number one priority and
ensure the agency does not take needed funds from its inspector
staffing, training and travel budgets.
I would also like to say that I can state, and I cannot
stress this enough, the aviation community would have suffered
without the professionalism, dedication and the sheer tenacity
of the inspector work force during this barren budget period.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy
to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement and biography of Keith DeBerry
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
PASS (Kerner) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. DeBerry. Mr. Kerner.
Mr. Kerner. Chairman Rogers, Congressman Sabo, Members of
the Subcommittee, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity
to appear before you today to discuss funding and safety for
the FAA's Flight Standards division. I am Bob Kerner, a
representative of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists
and FAA principal maintenance inspector in Cleveland, Ohio. I
have been involved in the aircraft maintenance industry for the
past 33 years. I have held positions in maintenance,
inspection, and management in both the air carrier and general
aviation fields.
inspector staffing
Inspector staffing levels remain well below what is needed
to accomplish our mission and assure that safety is not
compromised. On top of that, inspectors cannot spend enough
time in the field doing inspections because of all the
administrative tasks. This is a serious problem. The hiring of
additional aviation safety technicians could help mitigate the
effects of the staffing shortage. Inspectors would then be
available to adequately perform our jobs in the field where it
should be.
Inadequate staffing has caused problems in other areas as
well. FAA regulations require an FAA inspector to observe a
pilot during the first few flights after completing initial or
upgrade training. With the tremendous growth in the aviation
industry, the number of requests to accomplish this task is
staggering, given our current staffing.
Instead of hiring more inspectors to accommodate the influx
of requests, the FAA has authorized air carriers to deviate
from the FAA regulations. The FAA has authorized air carriers
to perform up to half of these pilot evaluations with their own
company check airmen. More than 6,000 new pilots are being
allowed into the system per year without ever interfacing with
an FAA inspector.
The FAA's response to staffing problems has been to
authorize more designees. Originally implemented to assist in
completion of simple tasks such as test administration, the FAA
has expanded designees to nearly all aspects of aviation
safety. Designees who are authorized to perform functions on
behalf of the FAA do not work for the FAA, but are either self-
employed or industry employees
By empowering the industry to police itself and relegating
its own highly skilled work force to check list duties, the FAA
is not fulfilling its regulatory oversight responsibility. An
increase in the inspector work force to ensure these
inspections are conducted appropriately and in compliance with
the regulations is imperative.
en route inspections
In addition to staffing, some problems could be corrected
with common sense changes to the agency policy. For instance,
the enroute inspection. One of many functions of inspectors
could be more effective if we were allowed to perform them more
appropriately. These inspections require an inspector in the
aircraft throughout a flight. Our mere presence generates and
promotes a focused safety conscience of the crew and provides
instant real time feedback on any noted discrepancies or
problems.
FAA policy severely limits the conditions under which an
enroute inspection can be performed. Essentially enroute
inspections are performed Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00.
This is in direct conflict with the recommendations from the 90
day safety review following the ValuJet crash in 1996, which
found the general public is safer any time an inspector is on
board an aircraft for any purpose.
In conclusion, I would ask the subcommittee to ensure that
the FAA provide proper staffing levels, adequate training and
internal policies that promote the highest levels of aviation
safety. With your influence and the process, we can ensure that
the national air system has proper oversight, and America's
flying public can be assured that air travel in this country
remains as safe as it can be.
Thank you for allowing me to testify. I would be happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement and biography of Robert Kerner
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Kerner. Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Eickenberg. Chairman Rogers, Congressman Sabo and
Members of the subcommittee, with your permission I would like
to precede Mr. Fisher and let him conserve his voice.
Mr. Rogers. That is fine. Thank you.
Federal Managers Association (Eickenberg) Opening Statement
Mr. Eickenberg. Good morning. My name is Arthur Eickenberg,
and I am currently an air traffic manager at the Tallahassee
Tower, Tallahassee, Florida. I would like to thank the
subcommittee for allowing me to appear as a representative of
the Federal Managers Association to offer our insight.
faa reform
I have 28 years of experience as an air traffic controller,
supervisor, staff specialist, including terminal, center,
regional and headquarters assignments and now as an air traffic
manager. We are now seeing the results of a growth in air
traffic, combined with a reduction in oversight and staff
support at the very point in time we are attempting to bring on
new hardware, software, and traffic management issues.
The FAA failed to fulfill the intent of Congress when the
agency was removed from Title 5 of the United States Code. The
original goal of taking the FAA out from under Title 5 was to
gain expediency in equipment procurement. Because the agency
did not have a focused objective from the outset, it has
squandered resources in an attempt to explore the ``freedoms''
that new personal management afforded.
In an August 1999, three-year status report on personnel
reform in the FAA that was commissioned by Congress, the
National Academy of Public Administration, NAPA stated, ``The
recent compensation agreement negotiated with the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has resulted in
significant reductions in funds for training of both employees
and managers. This is troubling for both its impact on the
technical competence of employees and on the effectiveness of
the new pay for performance system.''
pay disparity
Today, we are saddled with the disparate treatment of our
human capital as a result of mismanagement, coupled with a lack
of leadership. This has been no more evident than in the pay
inequities we are currently witnessing as a result of the
actions taken by the agency leadership in October of 1998.
Referring once again to the aforementioned NAPA report:
``The pay increase negotiated by the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association for its members created pay disparities
that may present barriers to deployment of employees because
field unit positions offer the prospect of more favorable
compensation than regional and headquarters positions.''
The decision to exclude a segment of the air traffic work
force, in particular managers, supervisors and staff
specialists in regional offices and headquarters positions
created a significant decrease in morale that still exists as
we speak. The victims of this exclusion were those who had
diligently worked their way up from the controller ranks and
had been promoted to managerial, supervisory, and staff
positions.
Despite their desire to accept the greater responsibility
that comes with any management position, they were arbitrarily
exempted from the compensation system applied to their
colleagues. In fact, it was declared air traffic managers,
supervisors and specialists in regional and headquarter offices
were to be compensated at a rate lower than that of the field
air traffic personnel occupying the position from which they
had been promoted.
When the agency recognized it would be extremely difficult
to recruit personnel into the now devalued regional and
headquarter positions due to the lower salaries, rules were
changed to permit field personnel to retain the higher
compensation levels when they accepted positions in the regions
and headquarters. Subsequent rules were then promulgated which
provided an additional increase in compensation for field
personnel selected to regional and national headquarters
positions. Again, the incumbent managers, supervisors, and
staff were excluded.
The net effect of these arbitrary action is that these
individuals serving in regional and headquarters air traffic
positions on October 1, 1998, have been hurt with respect to
both their pocketbooks and their morale. It should be noted
that this exclusion from the pay increase resulted from a
desire to accept positions that were identified as promotional
or career enhancing.
The short-term impact in many cases, is a loss of a
compensation exceeding $20,000 per year; the long-term effect
include the cumulative loss in retirement benefits and thrift
savings plan return, as well as lower morale created by these
financial and professional disincentives for wanting to join
management ranks.
All attempts to resolve this issue within the agency have
been unsuccessful. The message communicated to the affected
employees has been that the agency has the authority to enact
arbitrary compensation programs despite an independent analysis
regarding the validity of the regional and headquarters
position classifications.
A vivid illustration of this pay disparity involves two
individuals from the same air route traffic control center who
accepted assignments in the same regional office. One was on a
detail, had their detail terminated, went back to the center
and was included in the pay raise. Shortly thereafter, this
individual was detailed back to the regional office and brought
the pay raise with him.
Meanwhile, the other individual, who was permanently
assigned and was unable to return to the center, was excluded
from the pay raise. The net effect was that they were now both
working in the same division within the same regional office at
some $20,000 per year discrepancy in pay.
In fact, Mr. Chairman, I personally have been severely
impacted by the same injustice. I was a staff specialist in the
ARTCC. The work I was performing had national implications, and
I was brought into the regional office to give me greater
latitude to perform that work.
On October 1, 1998, the date the pay effectively changed
with the agreement between the FAA and the controllers' union,
I was prevented from returning to work at the center and
thereby suffered the consequences of being in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Meanwhile, my counterparts who remained in the center
benefited substantially by virtue of being in the right place
at the right time, entitling them to the pay raise that should
have been distributed equitably throughout the agency.
Since the passage of the reauthorization bill of 1996,
which removed the FAA from Title 5, we have witnessed guidance
for policy and personnel reform being implemented ``on the
fly'' with little empirical data to justify the changes. There
exists no shared vision nor a clear direction for the reform
effort. The various lines of business have been unsuccessful in
formulating their own individual policies. And perhaps most
troublesome, there is no communication of the reform changes to
the work force.
The current state of the FAA is such that managers and
supervisors in the field are being increasingly hamstrung by
rules made ``on the fly'' that reduce the tools by which to
manage and hold people accountable for their actions.
Accountability is the issue. To this end, the FAA must
immediately address the pay inequities within the agency.
As the NAPA report accurately states: ``The majority of
employees, managers and executives interviewed by the NAPA team
expressed concern for supervisors' ability to handle the new
complexities without a significant investment in training. The
impact of the financial shortage is exasperated by the fact
that the number of supervisors has been significantly
diminished increasing the personal management responsibility of
those remaining.''
Mr. Chairman, I would like to provide this committee with a
copy of a briefing package that completely covers the pay
issue.
This concludes my prepared statement, and I will be happy
to answer any questions the committee may have at the
conclusion of this discussion.
[The prepared statement and biography of Arthur Eickenberg
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Federal Managers Association (Fisher) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Fisher. Chairman Rogers, Congressman Sabo, and Members
of the subcommittee, believe it or not, this is not my real
voice. It will be back in December they tell me.
faa management and supervisor oversight
My name is John Fisher, and as president of the FAA
Conference of the Federal Managers Association I am here today
to represent the interests of managers, supervisors and support
staff specialists throughout FAA. Our critical role in the Air
Traffic Control (ATC) organization is to oversee the day to day
operations at the field level.
I come to you with more than 39 years of experience in the
ATC field as a controller and operations supervisor. In
essence, I have almost 40 years of experience pushing airplanes
around. I have devoted two-thirds of my life to the FAA because
I love what I do, but more importantly, because I believe in
the importance of this agency's mission to ensure the safety of
the flying public.
It gives me tremendous grief and heartache to come to you
today to discuss several issues that could compromise the
margin of safety my colleagues and I protect every single day.
But I ask you to bear with me for a few minutes because I feel
so passionately about our concerns that not even my voice, or
lack thereof, could prevent me from sharing with you what FMA
believes to be several areas of serious concern for the FAA.
What scares me is seeing in the field today that we simply
do not have--do not have--sufficient management and supervisory
oversight. The agency continues to reduce the number of
supervisors and support staff in an effort to reach an
arbitrarily determined ratio of ten to one.
We supervisors are responsible for certifying that
controllers are qualified to direct live traffic, while support
staff personnel plan and provide training and ensure quality
assurance. We serve as mentors by providing air traffic
expertise and assistance to develop the members of the
controller work force. During the training process we provide
critical feedback to the trainee, the training team, as well as
management. We are also certified to direct live traffic.
We do not perform what you might consider to be the typical
supervisory duties such as sitting behind a desk and watching
from afar. To the contrary, we are ``plugged in''. I wear a
headset. We supervisors in fact serve as a liaison between
safety and efficiency in the operational environment.
During events affected by equipment or system outages,
heavy traffic situations or severe weather conditions, we
supervisors are responsible for implementing traffic flow
procedures to ensure safe and efficient movement of aircraft.
We serve as the highly trained stabilizing element to assist
controllers in effectively gauging and controlling these usual
occurrences.
Supervisors and managers play an essential role in bringing
a systems view to traffic management that alleviates congestion
between facilities. That is why we at FMA know the missing
ingredient in the safety dilemma confronting the agency to be
supervisory oversight.
supervisor ratio
Since 1995, the FAA has embarked on an initiative to
improve the agency's efficiency following the recommendations
of the former Vice President's National Performance Review,
subsequently known as the National Partnership for Reinventing
Government, to move to a 15 to one employee to supervisor ratio
throughout the federal government.
The FAA, in an attempt to comply with this initiative,
began reducing management oversight and staff support in its
air traffic facilities. The increase in negative safety
indicator, as well as aircraft delays can be attributed to the
FAA's goal of meeting an arbitrary figure of ten to one. This
continuing decrease in operational oversight and staff support
has a comprehensive and detrimental effect on operations,
including increases in delays, as well as safety factors, such
as runway incursions, surface incidents, operational deviations
and operational errors.
faa management and supervisor oversight
Training initiatives on changes to existing procedures and
practices, safety trends and recurrent training suffer without
proper oversight and staff support. Also, eagerness to act
aggressively and accordingly to determine a new plan to
accommodate changing weather conditions, and the willingness to
take the time necessary to make on the spot corrections,
however minor, are lost without this oversight.
We have been down this path before. In 1996, the FAA
reorganized its ATC management structure and removed the
majority of its second level managers. The first level
supervisor was forced thereby to absorb these duties and thus
be pulled ``off the operations'' floor. This took the first
level supervisors away from their primary responsibilities of:
managing traffic flow; ensuring equipment needed for separation
of aircraft is operating at peak effectiveness; and providing
the necessary oversight to provide and ensure all facets of the
air traffic system are operating at optimal efficiency.
The FAA has not taken into account lessons learned from
past efforts to implement policy before careful examination.
According to FAA statistics, for example, in 1994 a reduction
of operational supervisors at the Houston air traffic control
center resulted in a 14 percent increase in operational errors.
In the face of those rising errors, the FAA halted supervisory
reductions, added back the supervisors, and this produced an
immediate decrease in the error rate.
It is no surprise that since 1996 operational errors have
once again been on the rise. According to the DOT Inspector
General, operational errors have risen 51 percent from fiscal
year 1996 to fiscal year 2000. In 1999, the FAA experienced a
record high in operational errors; in 2000, that record was
broken; so far in 2001 the FAA is already ahead of last year's
record pace. Runway incursions are occurring with unprecedented
frequency, and delays to aircraft are angering passengers and
severely affecting the aviation economy. Yet the FAA is again
reducing its supervisory oversight.
The DOT IG has ``found'' that the function of air traffic
control supervisors is essential in providing successful air
traffic operations. The FAA does not plan to eliminate the air
traffic supervisor function but instead hopes to compensate for
the loss of supervisors by expanding and enhancing the current
practice of using ``controllers in charge'' or CICs. CICs have
historically been utilized mainly when supervisors take short
breaks and when operations are slow. However, beginning January
1 of this year the CIC program has been expanded to allow CICs
to perform supervisory functions during periods of high
traffic.
controller-in-charge
It is interesting to note that air traffic controllers have
been paid a ten percent pay differential for performing the CIC
work since October 1, 1998, even though the expanded CIC
program went into effect this past January. It is due to this
ten percent differential that: one, 100 percent of controllers
are currently being designated as CICs in many facilities and
are eventually expected to be in all facilities; and, two, that
the CIC duties must be distributed equitably among these
controllers.
We at FMA have raised serious concerns about such an
entitlement, which does not give management the right to select
only the best qualified controllers to perform CIC duties. The
DOT IG has expressed similar concerns. Moreover, the rotation
of the CICs designed so that all controllers receive the ten
percent differential, does not allow for consistent performance
nor enhancement of the skill base required to fulfill the
demanding responsibilities of a supervisor, all of which could
lead to safety being compromised.
operational errors
An area that is jeopardizing the safety net that the FAA
has successfully created is the recent agreement between FAA
and NATCA involving the increased leniency toward controllers
who commit operational errors. Ms. Carmody has already
commented on that.
The NTSB posed a similar question about the methodology
employed, saying that it does not know of any FAA studies
showing that airplanes can be safely brought closer together,
``which seems remarkable since pilots and the flying public are
potentially most at risk from de facto reduction of separation
standards.''
The FAA standard is and has for many years been additional
training or possible reassignment to a person who commits these
errors. Typically that person is transferred to a less complex
or less busy facility. Frankly, it is not in the interest of
the FAA to put people out of work when so much time and
resources have been invested in the training and development of
that individual.
FMA recommendations
Our recommendations. FMA firmly believes that the ``next
steps'' need to be taken are Number one: reinstate supervisory,
management, and support staff in air traffic facilities to 1994
levels, just before the onset of a now exponential growth in
negative safety indicators. Two, hire 900 entry level
technicians in the Airways Facilities branch of FAA. These are
the individuals that maintain our radar, navigational and
communications systems. Because management oversight has also
been stripped from the AF branch, along with the necessary
dollars to fund training--both initial and recurring--critical
systems cannot be immediately brought on line when something
goes wrong. Three, fully fund the FAA operations budget. We
have cut every corner imaginable. When we broaden the picture
to include the systems we now wish to modernize, as well as the
training needed to keep our agency a world leader, you can
begin to realize the magnitude of this shortfall. Four, develop
strategies to move quickly on all proposed runway construction
at pacer airports so that it may be completed in the next four
years. Five, the Federal Managers Association requests a
position on the FAA's Management Advisory Council so that we
may represent the field management perspective as part of the
decision making process.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, it is critical that we do
everything within our power to remove any contributor to the
degradation of the safety of the American flying public. Right
now, we just do not have the adequate supervisory and
management levels to provide oversight, yet the reduction of
this oversight continues. It is with great concern that we
approach the subject of negative impacts on the safety of the
flying public.
This concludes my prepared statement. We at the Federal
Managers Association look forward to working with the FAA,
Congress, and all interested stakeholders to ensure the safety
of the flying public.
I might add, Mr. Chairman, when you opened the meeting you
talked about the fabulous six. I would like to make it a
magnificent seven and include the FMA.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement and biography of John Fisher
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
definition of delays
Mr. Rogers. You got a deal.
Thank you all for your statements. We are going to try to
abbreviate our questions because of the shortage of time, so we
hope that we can get through the questions here briskly.
Ms. Garvey, you told us two weeks ago at this hearing when
we had the group of six here that you would have a standard
definition of delay by the time of today's hearing. This has
been studied and task forced to death for the last decade, I
guess, between the industry, the FAA and all the elements of
the airline industry. Puzzling to me, no one could agree what
delay meant.
You promised two weeks ago that you would tell us today
officially that the government has decided to define delay. Do
you have a definition?
Ms. Garvey. I do, Mr. Chairman, and I will say, as we
talked about at the last hearing, there has always been a
difference between what the FAA reports and what the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics (BTS) reports, but we have arrived at
a simple and I think very straightforward definition, which is,
our definition is considered delayed if it arrives at the
destination gate 15 minutes or more after its scheduled arrival
time.
We have focused on the arrival time because that, according
to consumers and business groups, is really what people care
about. Will I get to my meeting on time? Will I be able to be
picked up on time?
In addition, and I spoke with the Inspector General about
this yesterday. It is important, though, to note that is the
simple, straightforward definition, but we will continue to
track the delays at any point of the flight so that we can
understand better what to do about it.
AIR CARRIER REPORTING PILOT PROGRAM
We have four airlines now as a result, frankly, of the
hearing a couple of weeks ago who have stepped forward and said
that they will act as a pilot program to collect the data so
that we can divide it into the causes. We have three basic
causes. They are going to begin to collect that data. I believe
two of them have reported already to BTS. We are asking the
other two to do that. Once we understand the data better, once
we make sure we are collecting it in the right possible way,
then we will expand it it to the other airlines. Again, a
flight would be considered delayed if it arrives at its
destination 15 minutes or more after its scheduled arrival
time.
Mr. Rogers. Let me be the first to award you a star for
answering the first of the commitments that each of these
people have made. This is a big achievement, ladies and
gentlemen. The government has defined delay.
Given the difficulty that we have gone through with the
industry having their definition of it, the controllers have a
different definition, the pilots have a different definition,
the maintenance people have a different definition, whatever,
all now have agreed.
Ms. Garvey. They have agreed. Some a little bit
reluctantly, but they have agreed.
Mr. Rogers. And so we have earned our first star.
Ms. Garvey. Excellent.
[Applause.]
CAUSES OF DELAY
Mr. Rogers. We are trying to find a more suitable symbol,
maybe a plane going up to indicate good, a plane going down to
indicate bad, and a plane crashing means you crashed out, but
suffice it to say for the moment we will use stars.
Now, what do you mean you are going to now start
determining the causes of delays?
Ms. Garvey. Well, there are three, and, frankly, I think
this is going to be the most challenging part. There are three
main categories of causes, if you will. One is circumstances
under the air carrier's control, and that would be something
like crew availability or a maintenance problem, something that
the air carrier can actually control themselves. The second, of
course, is weather, which is one we are all familiar with, and
current or forecasted weather conditions. That would be a
second cause.
The third would be conditions in the national aviation
system, and that is certainly those that are much more under
the FAA's control or the airport's control. The airport might
have a runway out of use for maintenance or whatever. We might
be putting in some equipment that might affect some delays.
Those would be the three categories, so those conditions
under the air carrier's control, weather conditions and then
finally conditions in the aviation system. We are asking the
carriers, those four pilot programs, if you will, to collect
the causes based on those three categories. We will take a look
at it during the summer months to make sure we are collecting
it in the right categories. There may be some fine tuning
within those categories. We may expand it to the other carriers
as well.
Mr. Rogers. When a plane has been delayed, that is to say
it arrives 15 minutes later than it was scheduled to, you are
going to be asking--let me get this straight--the airlines to
tell us why they were late?
Ms. Garvey. Well, they will be, first of all, reporting its
delay, and that is the information BTS has, and that is the
information they will be releasing to consumers so consumers
can help make their own judgement.Then secondly, in order to
understand it, we are asking the airlines to collect the data
in those three categories. For example, if we find out that--
well, let me just focus on our own since that is what we would
be responsible for.
If we find out they are putting in some equipment in
Cleveland, for example, as did happen actually last year with
Display System Replacement (DSR), if we find that we are
putting it in at a time that we are creating unnecessary delays
or difficult delays, we might take a look at it and say is
there a better way to transition? Can we do this at a different
time of the day? Are there some things that we can do?
If an airport, for example, finds out that it is doing its
maintenance activities on a runway at a particular time, we can
perhaps communicate that that is creating some real problems
for the systems, and then they can take the appropriate action.
As the Inspector General has pointed out, and I think
rightly so, the definition is the first step, but then really
understanding the causes and respond appropriately. We may find
out, and I know that sometimes the carriers do not like to hear
this, but we may find out that some are within the air
carriers' control, for example, some of the scheduling issues,
the over scheduling. Well, what some might call over scheduling
is creating some delays. They can then respond.
We need the right data, which I think gets to one of the
comments I made in the opening statement that we really need
data to help determine these decisions.
ACCURACY OF DELAY DATA
Mr. Rogers. I am somewhat concerned about the accuracy of
the data that you are going to collect because we are depending
on the airlines to classify these.
Ms. Garvey. I do understand that, and we will be working
with them very closely. I will tell you that this group that we
are working with, we will be looking at this with them as well.
Of course, we will be reporting some things, the conditions in
the national aviation system, but I will go back and double
check if there is a way to determine how comfortable we are
with getting the right and the most accurate information. I do
recognize that concern.
Mr. Rogers. I mean, we have all experienced this, but I
remember recently I was to have a connecting flight at the
Pittsburgh Airport from Lexington and then catch another plane
out of Pittsburgh for Washington. I waited there three or four
hours for that plane, and I was told the problem was weather.
It was beautiful outside. It was beautiful in Washington. It
was a weather related problem they said. I just do not believe
that. How can we trust the airlines to tell us the truth when
the record is not too good in the past?
Ms. Garvey. I think in the case, for example, Mr. Chairman
of weather we can track that pretty well ourselves, and we can
go back and look at that. I want to be sure that folks are
agreeing with me. We can go back, and in fact we will make sure
we do go back and check all of those.
We certainly have had some questions on some of the data
that we have seen reported. I will be honest. They probably
have some questions on some things that we might be reporting
as well, so we will keep good track of that.
DATA VALIDATION
Mr. Rogers. What I am looking for and I think what we are
looking for is a way to rate airlines based on delays. With one
in four planes being delayed today or canceled, I think the
consumer is entitled to know which airline has the best record
at not having delays, cancellations. Which has the worse. In
addition to the price that they charge for the ticket, I think
part of the consideration the consumer goes through when they
purchase or make their arrangements is how reliable that air
carrier really is, so it is to the air carrier's benefit, is it
not, to classify any problem as not their problem? It was the
weather. God interfered here. Or it was because the airport
does not have enough runways, or it was because the controllers
would not let us land, or it was because the maintenance people
were too picky, and the NTSB said we have to do so and so. It
is always somebody else's fault.
How can we now turn to these people and say hey, tell us
what you think. Classify these reasons for our delays. We think
most of them were weather. How are you going to police that?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I think you are asking the fundamental
question. How are we going to validate the information that we
get? I would like to if I could, and I promise you I will get
back by the end of the day. I have people back in the office
who are hooked into this hearing by Internet with the express
purpose of taking every IOU so we can get started on them
before the hearing is over.
Mr. Rogers. Let us say then hello everybody.
Ms. Garvey. I would like to check with my colleagues at BTS
because it really is the Secretary's Office that does collect
that and then finally releases it at the end of the month. I
will ask them if there is a way that we can provide some
technical assistance and ask the question how can we validate
the information we receive, so we will get back to you on that.
Fair question.
RANKING AIRLINES
Mr. Rogers. Do you agree that one of the biggest reasons
for having this definition of delay is now we can begin to rank
the airlines saying this airline has ten percent delay, this
one has 33 percent and so on? Is that not a good reason for
having the----
Ms. Garvey. Well, I think that is something the consumers
do want. They want to know what is the track record. I know
that BTS and the Consumer's Office and the Secretary's Office
collect a great deal of that information now.
I think that our challenge, and I speak really for the
Secretary's Office, has been in getting that information out in
a way that people really understand. I think a simple, clear
definition is the first step in that.
Mr. Rogers. Well, one of these days soon I want to have
another chart up here that we will keep in this room for lack
of a better place that ranks the airlines' delay performance so
that anybody can come in here or if they are watching a hearing
see what airlines are doing their job well and who are not.
If that is what it takes to make them feel more responsible
about being on time, then so be it. As I said in the earlier
hearing, I have nothing to lose because my service is so bad it
could not get any worse. You know, I am the kamikaze pilot
here. Congratulations on the definition. I am a little bit
nervous about who you are turning to to provide the----
Ms. Garvey. I understand, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Data to you. I have to be really
reassured that you are going to keep on top of how they
classify their delays so that we do not get faulty information
out of the airlines as we so often have in the past.
DATA VALIDATION
Ms. Garvey. I do know that as part of the pilot program
this group that has been meeting will be coming back and taking
a look at all of the information as it is coming in, so there
will be a chance for all of us both to challenge each other,
frankly, in the accuracy of the data. So that is the short
term, but I think the real question is long term how would we
validate the information as it is coming in, and we will get an
answer for that.
[The information follows:]
We have the same actual flight time data that the carriers
have. We can audit or review specific flights or specific
airports. The air carrier reporting will permit the FAA and the
carriers to work with each other's databases on a daily basis
to increase confidence in the reports. The reporting can be
audited after the fact. (This is the number one action item of
the Inspector General from this March 15 hearing.)
Choke Point Initiatives
Mr. Rogers. All right. Good. Before I turn you over to
others, on your set of promises on the big board here you have
a star beside your name now on defining delay. Can you tell us
anything else about your chores?
Ms. Garvey. I will now go through them very, very quickly.
The choke point initiatives. Actually, one of the issues
was to open up some new sectors, and we opened up four new
sectors in the last couple of weeks working again very closely
with the controllers. I think we had 21 initiatives. Eleven we
completed several months ago. Opening up the new sectors was
the next important initiative, and we have good progress on the
remaining choke points.
On capacity benchmarks, we are finishing our last few
visits to the airports this week to make sure that they are
comfortable with the numbers. I hope that the Secretary is
going to be able to announce those very soon, so again I think
it is interesting information and some good work going on
there.
Free Flight Phase 1 and Free Flight Phase 2 thanks to the
Congress and the support we have gotten, are very much on
track. I have a couple of questions on Phase 2, but that is
still in the early phases, and we will stay focused on that.
We are working hard on the National Operation Evolution
Plan with the airlines. We have what I think is an excellent
draft in place and completed a meeting with the airlines last
week to look at the latest draft. Our goal is to have that in
place within several weeks. Actually sooner than that, I hope.
Then streamlining the approval procedures for airport
capacity projects, something that I guess also Chip Barclay is
doing or working with us on. We have a report that is due to
Congress. I have seen one draft, had a few questions on it, but
we will make that goal of getting it to Congress in April, and
then we will continue to monitor and work on the issue of
delays.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we are going to have you and the other
five gang of six back up here in maybe a month or so, and we
will check off all of these items by everybody. We would expect
that you would have made significant progress by that time.
Ms. Garvey. I am sure we will, Mr. Chairman. I am sure the
people sitting behind me know how important it is and will
deliver as well.
Mr. Rogers. After all, you have earned the first star.
Ms. Garvey. I did note I am going to talk to my friend Ken
Mead because he gets to monitor a lot of what we do, so that
sounds good. I want to get that job.
Weather Delays
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two or three
questions.
I am just curious on the weather cause. Do we subdivide
that between weather at the airport they are departing from,
weather at the arriving airport and weather enroute?
Ms. Garvey. We do, Mr. Sabo, and in fact I think one of the
challenges, again in particular, communicating this to
consumers is that very often it is not the weather at the
airport. It may not even be at your destination. It may be
someplace in between.
One of the issues I mentioned to the Chairman is that we
are working with the airport channel and also with American
Association of Airport Executives with Chip Barclay and his
airport team to see if there is a way that we can hook into the
airport channels, which would show what is on our website, what
is on the FAA website, which essentially identifies the ground
delays at whatever airport has a ground delay and then would
give that kind of weather information.
Sometimes I think it is very confusing to consumers. As the
Chairman said, you know, the weather looks fine here. It is
fine at the other end. Where is the problem? We would like to
be able to show as much of that as we can to the customer, and
we do divide it that way, as you have suggested.
Mr. Sabo. I noticed the Secretary suggested yesterday that
we be more accommodating in letting pilots fly around weather
rather than simply wait for it to change.
Ms. Garvey. That, Congressman, really has been an issue,
the issue about whether or not we are being too conservative. I
think actually the Secretary spoke about some of the new
technology. I think at his speech he pointed out well, I wonder
if that is making us a little more conservative. We are getting
a little more cautious about some things.
We have worked really hard over the last year. I am glad
also to see one of the controllers who has been working on this
very, hard is in the audience. We have been working very hard
on a training program that really essentially I think clarifies
the role even more, gives the pilot and the dispatcher much
more flexibility, as the Secretary talked about, in making
those decisions.
Ultimately if there is very severe weather and there really
is a safety issue that the Command Center or the controller
sees, he is going to communicate that to the dispatcher. If it
has a real effect on the system, clearly the controller has to
step in and let the dispatcher know that.
That issue about giving the pilot and the dispatcher as
much flexibility and responsibility as we can has really been a
cornerstone of this whole training we have done leading up to
the spring/summer plan. That is why it was so important to have
the airlines engaged in that training with us. I think the
training has been very helpful and I think it will go a long
way in addressing some of those issues through this spring/
summer.
You know, I have to always say, I mean, I heard Dr. Arnie
Barnett last week from MIT, and he talked about this summer. He
said you know, as difficult as it was in terms of congestion
and delays, we should always remember that the risk to safety
last summer was zero, and we must, of course, as you have all
said and as some of the panelists have said, never lose sight
of the safety mandate that we have.
Runway Incursions
Mr. Sabo. I am curious on the runway incursion. Do most of
them involve an arriving plane and a departing plane, one of
them waiting, or do most of them involve planes that are
taxiing across runways to get to either their arrival
destination or where they want to eventually take off from?
Ms. Carmody. Most of them involve general aviation
aircraft. I believe I have seen statistics that about 62
percent have to do with crossing a taxiway improperly, whether
it is landing or taking off, so the majority would be that.
Another 22 percent involved misunderstood instructions on the
part of the air traffic controller and the pilot,
miscommunications.
Mr. Sabo. What is the ratio of the general aviation to
the----
Ms. Carmody. I do not know the ratio, Mr. Sabo. It is by
far the majority, and then there are others that involve
general aviation and air carrier, and then there are some that
are two air carriers.
Mr. Sabo. All right.
Ms. Carmody. We certainly have that available if I could--
--
Mr. Sabo. Are they at the major airports, or are they
mainly----
Ms. Carmody. They are all over.
Mr. Sabo [continuing]. At reliever airports?
Ms. Carmody. The number one airport for runway incursions
is a general aviation airport in Las Vegas, which is all
general aviation traffic, but there are incursions at all of
the major airports. Certainly Los Angeles has had their share,
Chicago. They are all over. That is why we are so concerned
about it.
Ms. Garvey. If I could just add a couple of comments? I
think Chairman Carmody has explained it very, well. General
aviation is a big player in this.
We have asked Phil Boyer to serve on an internal FAA team
because we know the sort of network that Aircraft Owners and
Pilots Association (AOPA) has in getting out to its members.
They have been extraordinarily helpful in both identifying some
very good education tools that we can use. They have a
wonderful website that they have put up a lot of maps of the
most critical airports, so AOPA, to their great credit, has put
a tremendous amount of effort into educating the general
aviation pilot.
I would also go back to something that was said earlier,
and that is the work that MIT and Mitre and NASA did for us I
think really responds to the issues that Carol Carmody has
raised, which is we really have to focus on the ones where
there are the greatest risks. Some of the general aviation
ones, certainly they are significant and we always want to see
those numbers going down, but we really want to focus on the
ones where there are the greatest risk for fatality, so I think
that work is going to be enormously helpful.
I happened to be in Reno not long ago, and the airport
there, a wonderful airport director and the head of the tower,
hosted an all day session of training for pilots to deal with
some of the issues that are, as Ms. Carmody said, unique in
Nevada.
In those places where we have gone in and done the SWAT
teams or the airport teams like Los Angeles we are beginning to
see some numbers going down. You know, we obviously are
concerned about it.
We took on ten initiatives last year. They are all in play.
They are all pretty much on schedule. Three I am concerned
about, but seven very much on schedule. I also think the help
from this committee in allowing us to hire runway experts in
each one of the regions is really our greatest hope.
What we are finding out is there is no national initiative
you can do. You really have to get it at the local level and
look at the unique characteristics at each one of those
airports. That has been extraordinarily important. Again,
thanks to this committee we will have about 100 of those
evaluations at those top airports this year.
Mr. Sabo. I am curious then at the commercial airports that
involve large carriers. Again, is that primarily across one
runway versus miscommunication on takeoff and landing?
Ms. Carmody. I think the answer would be yes. It is
primarily having to do with runways and cross taxiways with
improper clearances and instructions or misunderstood
instructions.
Mr. Sabo. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Alabama Airport Projects
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Sabo. Chairman Callahan.
Mr. Callahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to leave
these technical questions on the national problems to the
experts, either you or Mr. Sabo. I think you are doing both a
good job in all of these hearings.
I showed up to tell you, Mrs. Garvey, that I have my own
chart in my office. All of my concerns are parochial in nature
for authorized and appropriated projects. There are ten of them
in my district. You already have three stars, and I showed up
just to remind your colleagues and you and those watching you
on television back in your office that I am a member of the
panel that determines the economic destiny of your agency and
that I am anxiously looking forward to filling in the blanks of
my own chart in my own office.
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Callahan, I learned a lesson very early on
in Boston, and that is that all politics is local. I understand
that, and we will take a look at those projects as soon as we
get back.
Mr. Callahan. Yes. I understand that. I want those ten
stars before we vote on the final appropriation number. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Chairman Wolf, do you have anything you would
like to----
Mr. Wolf. No. I will wait.
Air Traffic Growth Projections
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Garvey, looking at the whole of the commercial aviation
system, air traffic seems to go up by leaps and bounds pretty
much every year, and the projections of that traffic growth
also continue to seem to go up very substantially. Who does the
traffic projections? Are those under a set of standards? Is
there a standardized system for that? Who is in control of
that?
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, there is. We put out forecasts
every year, and that really is the basis for the projection,
but in addition individual airports often do their own
projections as well that are much more specific to the airport.
We do put out the national forecast both for commercial
aviation, as well as for cargo, and we have begun in the last
couple of years to also take a look at general aviation as
well.
Mr. Olver. Do we have large discrepancies between your what
sound like standardized and what might be the local sense of
what those projections are likely or should be over a time?
Ms. Garvey. We do not see, Congressman, many discrepancies.
I mean, occasionally there might be one or two. Memphis, for
example, I remember last year took just a huge jump, about 20
percent, in the month of April. That was because of some
additional cargo operations. That may not have been quite as
reflective in some of the work we had done, but generally it is
the same.
The only time I think where we run into some differences is
if you have something obviously unanticipated like the Gulf War
or a recession that none of us were anticipating. You might see
some dips in those irregularities.
Mr. Olver. The Memphis case. Is that one where the airport
had much larger numbers than the agency was able to keep up
with?
Ms. Garvey. I am not sure that the airport actually had
different numbers from ours. I think there were some additional
operations in that month that no one expected--FedEx added some
additional operations that we had not anticipated.
Mr. Olver. I am sort of curious. If you would care to, if
you might suggest what are maybe three of the most problematic
locations for a discrepancy between these traffic growth
projections, which do seem to continue to rise rather
substantially, and the capacity to accommodate that growth
where the capacity I think involves runways, new runways?
It might involve the age or upkeep of the present
facilities and the equipment and so forth and maybe has
measures that include such things as the delays and the record
of safety and so on. That gives one an overall picture of where
that gap between growth projections and capacity to accommodate
would occur and then a sense of who really controls the
development of that capacity to accommodate the growth.
There are probably some of those features that you have
control of, some that only the state has control of and so on.
That is a pretty obtuse question, I suspect.
Ms. Garvey. Well, let me give it a try. First of all, I
think in terms of the discrepancies I do think we are pretty
consistent, so that is sort of the good news. We do know what
we can anticipate. We do know in many cases what is ahead,
although I will add one caveat, and that is the regional jets.
I think universally everyone has said that even with the
forecasting that we have done, which is pretty sophisticated, I
am not sure any of us really anticipated the popularity and
growth of regional jets, so that is one caveat. On balance, I
think it is pretty close to being accurate.
One of the questions, and this certainly came up last week
as well, is, are there some critical airports, as you have
suggested, where there is a real gap between what the demand is
and what the capacity of the system is.
I think the work we are doing in benchmarks is going to
help us really frame that issue even more precisely and clearly
than we have done it in the past. I think all of us sort of
have a pretty clear sense that a place like LaGuardia and the
airports in New York are very crowded, straining the system in
ways that are quite extraordinary.
Certainly looking at a place like LaGuardia and figuring
out with the airport and the airlines what are the right
solutions both in the short-term and the long-term, that goes a
long way I think in really determining what the right solutions
would be.
You said or you asked where does the responsibility in a
sense lie. In some ways I think it is the same answer that we
gave last week, which is we all have a piece of it. For
example, any airport project, any runway, has to really be
initiated at the local level, so you have to have tremendous
local support for a runway to occur. We cannot simply go in and
say we want a runway here. That would preempt the local
decision making.
What we can do, though, is what we will do with the
benchmarks, which is to say here is what the projected growth
is. Here is what we are seeing the demand to be, and here is
what we believe the capacity of this airport is, and here are
some potential solutions. We still have to have a local
decision making, but I think we can provide a useful part of
the debate, if you will, on that.
On technology, it is clearly our responsibility, along with
the airlines, to make sure that the technology moves ahead and
is deployed, so in a sense both we and the airports own a piece
of it. Of course, the airlines themselves, where they schedule
and how often they schedule, that is really I think a piece as
well.
AIRPORT GROWTH VERSUS PROJECTIONS
Mr. Olver. Do you have a tool kit of carrots and sticks
that you can apply to the places where you see a major
discrepancy between growth potential or growth projection and
capacity to accommodate?
Ms. Garvey. That is really a good question. I mean, we
certainly have discretionary grant money. With working with
Congress, I mean, that certainly is a wonderful carrot, too. I
think the direction of giving more of that money to small and
mid-sized airports, which is a Congressional directive, is
absolutely right on target. That certainly is a carrot, if you
will, which is very, useful.
I do find that most of the airports want to figure it out.
It is sometimes so enormously difficult. It is not even so much
that we do not have a stick, if you will. I think they want to
get there. Some of the local issues are just, as you know from
our own experience in Massachusetts, so hard.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Tiahrt.
DEFINITION OF DELAYS
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all,
Administrator Garvey, I want to comment on how you passed the
eye test and were able to read that chart from the distance you
are sitting. I also wanted to ask about these delays. I was not
sure on our definition of a delay now. It is a 15 minute delay
from the time you walk off an airplane, or is it wheels down?
What is the actual----
Ms. Garvey. From the arrival time at the gate.
Mr. Tiahrt. At the gate.
Ms. Garvey. At the gate.
Mr. Tiahrt. In that delay is there different
classifications for weather or for mechanical? Some routes do
have more weather related problems than others.
Ms. Garvey. Yes. That is exactly right, Congressman. There
are three specific categories, one having to do with the air
carrier's control, the second having to do with weather, which
is the issue that you just referred to, and the third would be
conditions in the national airspace system, so the causes would
be broken down into those three categories.
Again, as I mentioned, we have four airlines that are
willing to and are stepping to the plate to be a pilot in this.
We will see if we are getting the right data and if it is
giving us the information that we need. That activity will take
place over the next couple months. I must say, I know the
Secretary cares about this, and I am sure that he is putting
his team in place and he will put one of his very senior key
members on to head this task force when his team is in place.
AIRLINE PARTICIPATION IN PILOT PROGRAM
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Tiahrt, would you briefly yield?
Mr. Tiahrt. Yes, I would be glad to yield.
Mr. Rogers. Tell us what airlines are stepping forward to
participate now and maybe earning a star in their column.
Ms. Garvey. That is true. They should get good credit here.
American Airlines, Delta, Southwest and United. Those are the
four, and they are obviously a good mix I think of carriers.
Mr. Rogers. Have any of the airlines refused?
Ms. Garvey. I think we asked for volunteers so I do not
know that any airlines have refused. I am not aware of any who
have refused.
Mr. Rogers. So some of the others are considering it?
Ms. Garvey. They may be. I think we all agreed it was
probably good to start with four. I must say, I was not at the
most recent meeting, but I think we all agreed it was good to
start with a smaller group, make sure we were collecting the
right information. I give them a lot of credit. Russ Chew in
particular at American is at these meetings all the time and
has been very, supportive, as well as the other representatives
from these four.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, ma'am.
RUNWAY INCURSIONS
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to emphasize
the need for certification on new aircraft and new technology.
I think that this is very important for safety, and I know the
inspectors here, Mr. DeBerry and Mr. Kerner, are very concerned
about having adequate resources, and so am I.
I think one of the ways we get more safety involved in air
travel is making sure that new certification happens quickly so
as to not delay things that are potential safety issues. I want
to encourage you to continue your efforts to make sure that we
have those resources along those lines.
I have some questions on incursions. Perhaps it is Chairman
Carmody that can give me a little better idea. Now, not all
incursions are from aircraft. Sometimes incursions are fuel
trucks or buses moving passengers.
Is that classified separately than from say a private
aircraft or commercial aircraft when you look at incursions?
Ms. Carmody. I believe it is, yes.
Mr. Tiahrt. So we could tell then how much? I just do not
want to get----
Ms. Carmody. We could tell if it involves another vehicle
on the runway or if it involves another aircraft and what kind
of aircraft. Yes.
Mr. Tiahrt. I want to make sure that we have clear
classifications between, you know, some of these.
Ms. Carmody. Correct. An incursion does include any vehicle
on the runway, be it a truck or a van. It is classified as an
incursion, but we do know what those incursions involve,
whether it is another aircraft or not.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
Mr. Tiahrt. I notice in reading your testimony that there
is some question about whether we are using consistent phrasing
in the way we are receiving directions. I know also I listen to
the air traffic controllers when I travel occasionally. Not all
the time. I know there are different accents. You know, it is
different in Atlanta than it is in Chicago, and New York is
different from Los Angeles Of course, in Wichita we are always
the same. We are very consistent there.
Ms. Carmody. Very.
Mr. Tiahrt. Is there some effort that we know of for air
traffic controllers to have a consistent phraseology and also
trying to talk with a--I do not know how to address this, but
without an accent like a newscaster or something?
Ms. Carmody. Let me start with that, and then I know Ms.
Garvey wants to respond as well. What we intended with our
recommendation was to recommend that the FAA adopt what we call
the ICAO phraseology. ICAO is the International Civil Aviation
Organization, which is a United Nations body in Montreal. They
set standards internationally for aviation.
The beauty of ICAO phraseology is it is in English. It is
understandable all around the world. It is clearly and
immediately comprehensible to a pilot whose first language is
not English.
You are right about the different accents. Sometimes it is
hard in your own native language to understand, so if you
imagine you are not speaking your native tongue and you hear
different phrases that are not those phrases used in other
countries, it contributes to the confusion.
We have recommended that the FAA adopt the ICAO standard.
The FAA I believe has responded. They are looking into that.
They have a work group, and I am going to let Ms. Garvey
address that.
Ms. Garvey. Chairman Carmody is absolutely right. That has
been a big issue. As a matter of fact, that was one of the
initiatives that was identified last summer at the national
conference that we had on runway safety.
I happened just by chance to meet the young woman who was
working on this last Saturday. She was telling me that they
have done a tremendous amount of work. They have found some
wonderful software that can be used in the training and are
looking at an implementation in August of this year. That was
the schedule we had set and it looks like they are going to
meet it, so I think that is going to be a big help.
AIR TAXI OPERATIONS REPORT
Mr. Tiahrt. I speak two languages. I speak English and bad
English. I just want to make sure they do not use my second
language.
In AIR-21 there was a report that was supposed to be due,
and I know you do not have the answer here, but I would like to
know. It is Section 735 of H.R. 1000 entitled Operations of Air
Taxi Industry. This Part 135 air taxi industry has a report
that was due. I believe it is supposed to be done in the last
part of the summer, which is several months after the law takes
effect. I just would like you to check on the status and get
back to me----
Ms. Garvey. I will, Congressman.
[The information follows:]
The study on the air taxi industry has begun. FAA is
working with concerned aviation industry groups to provide a
comprehensive picture of the industry. Although due one year
after AIR-21, we anticipate final completion of the report by
September 30, 2001.
supervisor ratio
Mr. Tiahrt [continuing]. On how that is going.
I had one other question for Mr. Fisher. I know your voice
is coming back. Maybe Mr. Eickenberg can answer this.
In the ratios that you talked about, ten to one supervision
to air traffic controllers, what would your recommendation be
on the ratio? In most of industry it is 17 to one for ratios of
supervision. That is the ideal, 17 to one. In government we
have reduced that to 15 to one. I am not sure what that
reduction was. What would your recommendation be, and why is
ten to one not sufficient?
Mr. Fisher. Thanks for asking something I may be able to
answer. The FAA put out a study in I believe it was 1993 that
indicated the ratio in towers should be 6.4 to one. Further, in
that same study it indicated that when a supervisor was on duty
and not doing other than giving general supervision, it was 2.9
times more likely not to have operational errors than without
supervision in the tower, so that would be the base.
Mr. Tiahrt. Somewhere between six to seven to one is what
you are recommending?
Mr. Fisher. That is correct. My whole career has pretty
much been in the seven to one ratio prior to 1995.
Mr. Tiahrt. We are eventually going to have new hardware
for air traffic controllers. The sooner the better. What impact
will that new hardware have on this ratio of six or seven to
one that you would recommend?
Mr. Fisher. Well, I have to go back. I started my FAA
career in Birmingham, Alabama, Mr. Tiahrt, and then I went to
Atlanta tower. We had ASDE in 1971 in Atlanta tower, and it
worked. We got it from Chicago. We stole it from Chicago.
That was the piece of equipment then that worked in the
tower as we were moving the airplanes then. It is a tool.
Somebody mentioned a tool in your toolbox. That is what it is,
but it does not replace the supervisors in the towers, who
provide the oversight. It is a tool. The new tools we cannot
wait for. If it can be an improvement on the ASDE, which is
almost 30 years old, we welcome that.
Mr. Tiahrt. I wondered what was causing the delay in
Chicago. You said it goes back 30 years now. It is going to
catch up. Thank you for your time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Pastor.
airline schedules
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel
members.
Administrator Garvey, after the last hearing that we had,
and we talked about delays and the cause of delays, and now we
have a definition. One of the reasons or one of the factors for
these delays is that all the airlines want to leave at a
certain time because the passengers are requesting to leave at
8:00 in the morning and maybe get back at 4:00 in the
afternoon.
I know that airlines cannot get together and talk about
scheduling because of the antitrust, but an idea that I had,
and maybe you can look at it and let us know what barriers
there are. Is it possible that maybe every quarter in the two
or three choke points that we have that possibly the major
carriers who are scheduling be able to come under your guidance
and meet and maybe work out the situation where not as many
planes are leaving at the same time?
That might begin solving I guess some of the problems that
you might have with delays in that the airlines themselves may
decide what is reasonable and not in competition with each
other, but they can accommodate each other.
You might get back to me, because I thought that might be a
way to do it.
Ms. Garvey. We will take a look at that. Thank you very
much, Congressman.
joint industry/government meetings on airline schedules
Mr. Pastor. Also give us the barriers involved in doing
such a meeting or series of meetings.
[The information follows:]
The issue of airline collaboration on operations in the
choke points above what is being done through the FAA Command
Center must be carefully considered. Important federal
antitrust laws administered by the Department of Justice may be
the principle barrier to airline discussions of this nature in
the absence of the type of exemption authority provided in
pending House and Senate legislation. There are a variety of
effective ways to counter congestion apart from FAA and airline
operational initiatives. The Administration is therefore
assessing all options for reducing airspace congestion
effectively while preserving competition and consumer choice.
free flight
Mr. Pastor. Also, I noticed that the Free Flight is
something that you are looking at, Phase 1 and Phase 2. Very
recently a concern in Arizona was because of the airport spaces
we have that the military zones be protected. There was some
concern whether or not this Free Flight would cause the
military zones to be lessened or somehow there will be greater
safety issues if we reduce the military zones, especially where
we have Air Force bases.
[The information follows:]
Free Flight will not impact the airspace of military
installations. Although Free Flight provides for the safe and
efficient operation under instrument flight rules and allows
operators the freedom to select their path and air speed in
real time, flight in military airspace is prohibited unless the
Department of Defense gives permission to fly in that airspace.
Free Flight provides more widespread and dynamic sharing of
special use airspace current and future status. Free Flight
does not change the status of military airspace. It alerts
pilots to when those areas are ``hot'' and ``cold,'' (in use or
not in use by the military). By logging onto the Internet,
pilots can see whether or not special use airspace--usually
off-limits because of military use--is available during the
time of their flight. This initiative may save time, money, and
fuel.
inspector travel and training
Mr. Pastor. I wanted to talk to you about two things. One
is the inspectors', both gentlemen, lack of funding. The
resources are not there for additional inspectors, training,
lack of training and the inability to do enroute inspection and
also to inspect out sourcing. Would you care to address those
points so we have an idea of what your problems are?
Ms. Garvey. Thank you very much, Congressman. Certainly I
think some of the issues that the inspectors raised are issues
that we have been very concerned about, and we are working hard
with Mike Fanfalone and others on those issues. Again, with a
lot of help from Congress we got a supplemental last year, so
we are in the process now of addressing those issues. For
example, the safety and the training issues, which the
inspectors referred to. They were absolutely right. A couple of
years ago with some of the constraints that we had, some of
that training did not occur, and with the help from the
supplemental budget we are able to both do some of the
additional hiring that we had wanted to do and also do the
training that we had wanted to do.
I want to go back and take another look at the travel money
because while I know that has been an issue for all of us
across the agency, not just with the inspectors, my
understanding is that we had walled off the travel money for
the inspectors to make sure they could do the kind of
inspections that they need to. It sounds like I need to look at
that again, and I will. I want to give, though, a lot of credit
to people like Mike Fanfalone who have also come forward to say
let us think about a different way that we can do training not
just for some of the technologies, but in all of the areas. I
think the union itself is coming forward with some very
efficient ideas; still training, but being done in ways that
are more efficient.
It is always a challenge with an operation that is the size
of the FAA with the growth that we are seeing in the industry
to try to use the resources in the best possible way. I do not
pretend I have all the answers, and it is something I think we
have to just keep focused on. Good news from Congress though
with the supplemental to allow us to do more of the training
and to hire some of the inspectors that we have not been able
to.
On the enroute, I will tell you it is a bit of a challenge.
I understand exactly what the inspectors are saying about the
need to get out there and really sort of do a one on one. There
is nothing that substitutes for that.
The Inspector General did raise some questions a couple of
years ago with our controller program in the Familiarization
Training Program and suggested some guidelines about not
wanting to have that linked to sort of personal travel. Maybe
we are being a little too conscientious in following those
guidelines. We will go back and look at that again as well.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
OUTSOURCING
Mr. Pastor. Okay. Also the issue of out sourcing. You have
some of the airlines doing out sourcing.
Ms. Garvey. That is a very----
Mr. Pastor. Is that a problem?
Ms. Garvey. Well, that is a difficult one, Congressman,
because I remember when I was coming into the FAA reading an
editorial that was in the Washington Post at the time, and the
editorial writer was making the point that, we all have to own
safety. Again, with the growth that we are seeing, with the
kind of system integration, the complexity of the system, we
all have to own it. Airlines have to own it, the FAA. We have
had some success with the designated program where, for
example, even with Boeing they have the designated inspectors
on board. I, frankly, think we have to do some of that. We just
cannot have and we will never have enough people to look at
every aircraft. I hear what they are saying. You want to strike
the right balance between having enough inspectors so that we
are still doing our job and taking care of oversight. I
understand that issue. It is a constant question we have to ask
ourselves, but I think there is a balance, and I think there is
a way that we can use some of the designees and use them
effectively. We have to hold them to the highest standard. That
is the key.
CONTROLLER SUPERVISOR RATIO
Mr. Pastor. I have one more question. Basically, it seems
like the air traffic controllers worked out a better deal in
terms of their salaries and benefits, and I guess you cannot
blame them for doing that. I guess the managers needed probably
better representation at the table when they were negotiating.
This issue of the ratio. What do you think is the
appropriate ratio? We talked about, and I wrote down one, rules
on the fly. Do you want to comment on rules on the fly?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I will comment actually on both. First of
all, in terms of the controller ratio, and I notice that
Congressman Tiahrt mentioned what is occurring in industry and
so forth. Frankly, that has been an issue for us that we have
been trying to reduce the number of supervisors.
John referred to a study that was done in the early 1990s.
To be quite honest, I think there are a number of questions
about the validity of that study, but I think there is a point
that John made, and I want to go back to it because I think it
is important.
The role and the job of the supervisor is very important.
We are going at this very slowly. We are going at a reduction
of supervisors very slowly, and in fact before we make those
decisions we really involve the managers and make sure that we
are not certainly in any case where we think there is a safety
issue, where the facility just seems to be having some
particular difficulty. We would not make that. We would not
reduce the number of supervisors.
We have a very, smart work force. We have very talented
managers. We have very talented supervisors. Believe me, we
have very talented controllers. They are eager to take on some
additional responsibilities, and I think giving the manager the
right flexibility to make the decision, they will make the
right decision.
I am not interested at all in obviously short changing
safety in any way. I think we need to continue to ask ourselves
hard questions, but I think we are on the right track, and I
think we are doing the right thing.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION PAY
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
To back up one of the things the gentleman has been
pointing to is the pay at DOT. I am told that DOT has the
highest paid personnel in the government of any Cabinet agency,
and what is driving that is FAA. You can see in this chart here
in yellow the average pay of the government wide pay and in
blue is the FAA pay, and in red is the air controllers' pay
after the increase of 1997, so you can see what is driving the
cost of DOT, and I am wondering whether we are getting our
money's worth, to be frank with you.
Mr. Aderholt.
DEFINITION OF DELAY
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think a couple of the questions that I had have already
been answered in relation to your definition, Ms. Garvey, of
delay.
One small clarification. When you say at the gate, I would
assume that would mean the passengers being able to disembark
from the aircraft.
Ms. Garvey. I think it actually means at the gate, but I
will clarify that. In other words, that they are exiting once
the----
[The information follows:]
The arrival definition is based upon the time the aircraft
arrives at the gate. The definition is based on
``Recommendations of the Air Carrier On-Time Reporting Advisory
Committee,'' U.S. Department of Transportation, November 2000.
The following Exhibit A is an excerpt from the report.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Aderholt. Right. Exactly.
Also, you said that when you were coming together to try to
define this definition or to define what delay was there was
some reluctance on it. You do not have to use initially any
names, but what were some of the reluctant comments that were
made as far as not agreeing with that definition totally?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I should actually be a little clearer. I
am not sure there is as much disagreement around the definition
as it is around the causes. When I referred to the three
categories, I think there is always going to be some perhaps,
and the Chairman referred to this. There may be perhaps some
difference of opinion as to whether something is an airline
controlled delay or, for example, an air traffic delay. I think
it really does get to the point that airlines, and we all
recognize we have a degree of accountability, so you want to be
very clear on where you are putting that cause. So I think it
is probably more appropriate to say around the causes.
The discussions that occurred also were do you also count
departures, so there were some disagreements on that. The
committee felt or the task force felt that really, and,
frankly, we listened to people like Kevin Mitchell and the
folks from the consumer groups who were saying look, people are
focused on when they get there. They are focused on am I going
to get there in time for my meeting? Am I going to get there in
time for my family to pick me up? So that is really why we
ended up with that particular definition.
Mr. Aderholt. Okay. Thank you for being here before the
committee today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CAUSES OF DELAY
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Aderholt.
Along that line, how would this be categorized in your
three categories? As I understand it, a pilot and his plane has
their route for the day, and they stay with that route
regardless of whatever else happens.
Now, if that plane and pilot are late out of San Francisco,
they are to pick up and stop and exchange passengers in let us
say St. Louis, and they are late in St. Louis. The airline does
not have another plane to pick up those passengers to go on
their leg of the trip. They wait until that plane from San
Francisco gets there. Is that not correct?
Ms. Garvey. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. And then it goes on to say Washington, D.C.
Suppose the weather was bad in San Francisco, and the plane
was an hour late leaving San Francisco. They get to St. Louis
an hour late, and the passengers waiting to catch their flight
to Washington are sitting there waiting an hour for this plane
to get there from San Francisco.
The plane gets to D.C., of course, more than 15 minutes
late. Therefore a delay, correct?
Ms. Garvey. Correct.
Mr. Rogers. Under your categories who is at fault there,
the weather?
Ms. Garvey. It sounds to me as though it would be weather,
but again I think when we put it into the causes one would hope
that some of the issues that you talked about would be also
revealed.
You know, if I could go back to your delay? I just happened
to be a little bit concerned about that. It happened I think
the day before the last hearing. We did just take a look at it.
I know that when you arrived in Cincinnati, for example, a
plane had not arrived from Orlando--is that correct--because of
weather in Orlando I am told?
Mr. Rogers. That is correct.
Ms. Garvey. So would that have been a weather delay? I want
to make sure I am doing this correctly.
Mr. Rogers. What I did is I switched airlines to US Air and
flew to Pittsburgh, but that plane was late in getting there.
Ms. Garvey. All I can say is I just hope it was not an air
traffic issue. That is all. It would have been a weather delay.
AIRLINE OPERATIONS
Mr. Rogers. Well, why can the traveling public not expect
that on the scenario I mentioned, a plane from San Francisco
bound for St. Louis and they are in the hub mixing with flights
all over the country and they switch their flight there to
D.C., they could care less which particular pilot or which
particular plane is flying them to D.C. out of St. Louis. These
are people who flew to St. Louis from all over creation, and
they are hubbing there. Some are catching this flight to D.C.
Why should they worry about that pilot and that plane who has
determined by golly, that is going to be my route for the day
come heck or high water. I am going to stay with it. I do not
care how many people it inconveniences along the way.
Why can we not expect that that airline would have
available some spare planes to pick up those people on time and
deliver them on time to D.C., even though their plane from San
Francisco may have been an hour late? They could care less
about that. How can we get over that hurdle?
Ms. Garvey. That is a really good--I have to say. This is
airlines operations, which I am not as familiar with, but I
know that the consumer group here in Washington has made that
same point, wondering if there ought to be a way to have some
sort of a backup for the airlines. I have no idea what----
CAUSES OF DELAY
Mr. Rogers. Well, under your three categories, carrier
problems, the crew arrives late, the plane needs repair or
whatever, or weather or something wrong with the system like
the air controllers have a problem or the runway is shut down
or whatever, I can imagine that somewhere in this country right
this minute there is a terrible storm going on, or it is
snowing, or there is some weather nominally happening that is
preventing some planes from taking off. That is going to happen
every day.
Ms. Garvey. Sure.
Mr. Rogers. Under your categorization, I can imagine the
airlines blaming every single delay they have on bad weather
somewhere in the country, and they could probably make some
reasonable argument to justify that, so are we really anywhere
yet with this definition of delay when we are going to allow
the carriers to blame everything on the weather?
Ms. Garvey. Well, here is what I hope we could get to, and
again this is going to need more work. This is exactly why we
want to have the pilot programs. If, for example, we were
seeing a large number that were attributed to weather and they
were occurring at particular hubs, the next questions might be
well, all right. Can we do something about this? Is there
something the airlines can do? One would hope that in these
discussions it would raise the question because once you know
the cause then you have to figure out the right answer. I am
hopeful that in those discussions with all of us in the room,
including the Inspector General, we are saying look, if it is
the weather and it is happening at these hubs where the
connections occur and where they are relying on aircraft coming
from other places, is there something that the airlines can do?
Is there something that government should do to really make
sure that some sort of system really is working? Maybe it is
partly what Congressman Pastor mentioned. Maybe in some of
those cases there is much more sort of allowing of airline
tickets to be used for other carriers. I do not know. I think
that is a very good question, though, and one we are going to
have to look at.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Wolf. Chairman Wolf.
Mr. Wolf. I am going to defer to others who were here
before me. I am going to come back. They were here before me.
Mr. Rogers. All right. Ms. Emerson.
controller-in-charge program
Mrs. Emerson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a couple of questions about air traffic controllers.
Mr. Fisher, I hate to burden your voice, but I do have a couple
of questions I would like to ask you just because, first of
all, I will state that I fly every week, but I do not like to
fly. I just am a nervous flyer.
I also recently, as a result of our last meeting here, got
some of the software, the Flight Explorer software, so that I
could actually now track all the flights myself and figure out
where everything is. I am fascinated with it, and I actually
have had fun playing with it, but it scares me to death to see
all those airlines, all those planes flying at the same time.
That brings me to the question of air traffic controllers,
who I greatly admire. I mean, I cannot imagine doing that job.
That has to be the most high stress job in America. I would be
very much in favor of lowering the threshold of supervisors to
air traffic controllers even as one who has worked in the
private sector and understands very well the ratio situation
just because of the nature of that job.
In moving to this new system of controller in charge, if
you will, how is there any kind of consistency of direction
from your standpoint first, Mr. Fisher, and then perhaps from
Administrator Garvey? How is there a consistency of direction
when you have a different supervisor every day or an acting
controller in charge, a different person doing this job every
day?
Mr. Fisher. Well, there is no consistency. When I started
as a supervisor 27 years ago, I did it 40 hours a week. I was
mentored and coached.
In today's environment, since January, 2001, with the
expanded CIC program, a controller is rotated, so he or she may
come in and work the position as CIC supervising the floor and
may not do that again for the rest of the week because
contractually they have to rotate the assignment to make it
equitable among the controllers.
Mrs. Emerson. Okay.
Mr. Fisher. Therefore, we get limited expertise because
there is no significant experience gained by the controller.
controller-in-charge training
Mrs. Emerson. Right, but has that controller had the same
training and certification that you had when you assumed your
supervisory position?
Mr. Fisher. No. Very limited training. The Inspector
General spoke to this in one of his latest remarks about the
fact that the FAA had to meet four recommendations prior to the
implementation of the CIC program. The FAA has not met those.
Mrs. Emerson. So if, for example, you have someone in
charge for the day or the week or however you do it who has not
had the training that other supervisors have had and if there
is the need for some sort of a disciplinary action, if you
will, I mean how can a subordinate actually know?
I mean, if you are an air traffic controller without
supervisory responsibilities but you assume those, you know,
every day or one day a week or what have you, I mean, how does
that supervisor discipline, if that is necessary, those
colleagues with whom he or she has a regular relationship when
they are not acting in a supervisory role I guess is the best
way to put it?
Mr. Fisher. Our opinion and what we see today is they will
not because tomorrow that person that they might give that on
the spot direction to will be the one doing the supervising, so
their roles will change.
Mrs. Emerson. Administrator Garvey, will you address that
for me for a moment?
Ms. Garvey. I guess I would see it slightly differently.
First of all, we have always had controller in charge. That is
particularly the case in the small facilities where everybody
does everything. Everyone pitches in. We have always had
controller in charge in some fashion in the agency.
I actually believe that we have racheted up the training
considerably. I think it is a much better program now. The
training is more formal. John is right that the Inspector
General raised some issues around the training. We addressed
those. The feedback we have gotten from individual managers,
the feedback we have gotten from supervisors and controllers is
very positive on the training.
I will add one point, and this is a very important point.
It is the manager who really is calling the shots for this. I
mean, the manager is making the determination whether or not he
or she wants to use the controller in charge. I will also add
one more thing. We are doing a pretty intensive evaluation of
the controller-in-charge program in June. I am looking forward
to that. I think it has been very good. I always think when you
put a new program in place you can make some improvements. I
expect the evaluation will reveal some of those improvements
that we can make, but I believe the training is much better.
Again, I get back to the point that we have a very talented
work force. We ought to use them. They are professional. They
are smart. They are bright. They are willing to take on more
responsibilities. I would like to break down some of the
barriers between the managers and the controllers.
Mrs. Emerson. Well, most of the supervisors or managers I
guess have been controllers themselves anyway, and, as I said
earlier in my remarks, I mean, I admire anybody who does that
job, which I think is far more difficult than the jobs that we
do or you do or probably anybody in this room short of the
controllers.
recess
Mr. Rogers. Mrs. Emerson, I have to interrupt. We have a
vote in about three minutes on the Floor. We will have to
resume when we return. It is the lunch hour, so I suggest we
recess until 2:00 for the lunch hour. We can go vote, and you
can resume at that time.
Mrs. Emerson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much.
controller-in-charge training
Mr. Rogers. The committee will be in order.
Mrs. Emerson, you were in the process of asking a question.
Mrs. Emerson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe we were
talking about the training of CICs and, Mr. Fisher, it looked
like you had your hand up. You were going to respond, I
believe. So let me--if you will--equivalency and that sort of
thing. Please.
Mr. Fisher. Okay. I think Ms. Garvey was commenting on
differing from my opinion about the training as being
sufficient.
Ms. Garvey. With respect, though, John.
Mr. Fisher. Yes. With respect. And in the field, we do not
see that as being true. There is minimal training--there are no
quality assurance baselines and Ms. Garvey, I believe,
indicated there were some assurances by the IG that these were
being worked on as well as the entitlement piece. We, however,
have seen nothing to verify that that has been in place.
Mrs. Emerson. So in other words, when you were trained to
be a supervisor, did you have to go through a certain number of
classes, spend a certain number of hours learning to be a
supervisor? Since you started as an air traffic controller or
is the training different, a hands-on type of training?
Mr. Fisher. Well, it is on-the-job training (OJT). It is
the mentoring by others. And it is a continuous duty that you
would perform that is absent in today's environment with the
new CIC program. So I worked at it and worked with people who
could help me craft what I do. In addition, we went to
different schools. Then, it was in Lawton, Oklahoma. Currently,
it is in a nice place in Florida.
Mrs. Emerson. So in other words, the current--in your
opinion, the current air traffic controllers who are now taking
on supervisory roles have not been trained as well as those of
you who either are supervisors or have been let go as
supervisors, through attrition or who have retired.
Mr. Fisher. Yes, it is through attrition, that is true.
What I can tell you, Congresswoman, is that in Federal Managers
Association's (FMA) opinion, the CIC program is flawed and it
needs to be scrapped. We need to get supervisors back to
supervising. There has to be a balance between the ingredients
that make a cake rise to be the best it can be. I heard that
time and time again from my mom, who was a dietician. We need
the best ingredients.
Mrs. Emerson. Well, and I know, having been a manager in
the private sector. When you are a line employee, it is hard to
supervise your colleagues and then report if there are some
problems.
Mr. Fisher. We see that in the field today. That is
correct.
supervisor ratio
Mrs. Emerson. Ms. Garvey, let me ask you a question, then,
to follow up on that because I read in one of these background
pieces that the safety analysis figures since 1995 indicate a
degradation in air traffic operation, including delays and I
wonder, do you think, is there any kind of a correlation
between the supervisor/staff reductions and the continuing
trend toward degradation?
Ms. Garvey. Congresswoman, I believe that is the report and
I hope I am answering this correctly. We do not see a
correlation between the two. In fact, if you look at some of
the numbers over the last couple of years, that becomes very
clear and we would be happy to provide that to you.
I think when you try to determine the cause of either
operational errors or runway errors, you have to really look at
multiple factors. There is not a one-to-one correlation.
And I want to continue to get back to a point that I made a
little bit earlier, which is ultimately what we are doing is
giving the manager the kind of flexibility that he or she needs
in the field to make the determination about a CIC. So I really
do not want to lose sight of that. In other words, if a manager
feels that the controllers he or she has under their management
supervision, if they feel they are not up to it, then they are
certainly not going to put them in the CIC position. But,
again, I want to stress these are very talented, very good
people who are very willing to take on additional
responsibility. I would again say that I think that the
training--we certainly need to always look at it, but I think
the training is very solid, very good, better than it has been
in the past.
[The information follows:]
There are no current studies that correlate, nor do the
fiscal year 2000 data appear to show a correlation or direct
tie between the number of supervisors and operational errors,
runway incursions, and other safety indicators.
A review of fiscal year 2000 operational error data
indicates that operational errors occur and are reported when
either a supervisor or controller-in-charge (CIC) is on duty.
Supervisors were on duty in 1,033 of the 1,145 operational
errors reported and a CIC was on duty in 112 of the 1,145
operational errors.
supervisor management risk factors
Mrs. Emerson. I have no doubt that they are all very
talented. I think it is hard as a line person when you are
having to supervise your equals, the people who are your equals
at other times during the week, it is very hard, in my opinion,
having been in those positions in the past, to do the
appropriate supervisory type roles, but let me ask you, then,
back to the other question with regard to the degradation of
air traffic operation.
Have you all done studies, then, that would determine the
role that supervisory management oversight might have on delays
or operational errors or the incursions on runways? Has the FAA
actually done those types of studies?
Ms. Garvey. The studies that we have done, primarily those
in the last, say, six or eight months focus on the risk
factors. I think I mentioned that a little bit earlier, taking
a look, for example, at the surface incidents, the runway
incursions, taking a look at the operational--well, let me
start with the runway incursions and breaking them down by
various risk factors.
The issue about the direct relationship between the number
of supervisors and the controllers, we have not done a recent
study per se. If that is a suggestion, it is probably a good
one and we will certainly take a look at that.
Mrs. Emerson. And I think to make us all feel better, we
want to be sure that the American public is flying under the
most safe possible conditions and so I appreciate that. So I
appreciate that.
Supervisor Ratio
Mr. Rogers. Thank very much. We have to move on to others.
Whose chart is this?
Mr. Fisher. Mine, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Good. I saw it sitting down here and it was not
being visible. Would you mind explaining what this is?
Mr. Fisher. What that chart indicates is from 1995 up to
this last year and you can see we use the agency's figures to
show the increases in all the categories depicted.
In 1996, when we went through a restructuring, we lost our
second-level managers. There was sort of an even keel right
there and as a result the supervisors were forced to come off
the floor and sit behind a desk. So their duties are now
stretched to where they cannot actively be on the floor and
actively participate as they would like to because of so many
other duties. So now you can see the 1998, 1999 and 2000 jump
in all categories that affect the safety record of the agency.
Operational errors this year are already ahead of where they
were at this time last year. That is appalling to us.
Ms. Garvey was referring, I think, to a yet-to-be-done
study about the reduction of supervisors or a current study
about the reduction of supervisors as it pertains to the
errors. Our graph that we can bring to the committee shows that
when we cross-reference all of these categories with the spikes
we have now seen with the reduction of supervisors it is clear
that the lack of oversight greatly contributes to the increase
in these four categories.
Mr. Rogers. Ms. Garvey, you need to respond, do you not, to
that?
Ms. Garvey. I guess I just would simply say I do not think
the data does show that. I do not think you can make a one-to-
one correlation. I think you have to really look at it very
carefully. In fact, if you look at the numbers over the last
couple of years, it would be clear that the vast number of
operational errors occur when the supervisor is in charge.
And, believe me, when I say that, I am not--I am even
hesitant to say it because I am not trying to cast any
aspersions on the supervisors for whom I have great, great
respect. I simply want to caution that we not jump to an
immediate conclusion and say the cause for the increase in
operational errors or the cause for the increase in runway
incursions is because there has been any reduction in
supervisors.
Mr. Rogers. Is it a part of the problem?
Ms. Garvey. I think that is a fair question. I think that
is part of what we have to look at. Now that we have the risks
in place, let us look at that. I agree with you. And we do have
some----
Mr. Rogers. What do you think?
Ms. Garvey. I do not think you can make a one-to-one
correlation. I just do not think you can do it.
Mr. Rogers. Well, Mr. Fisher a moment ago said we should
get rid of the CIC, the controller of the day, sort of, that
gets a big bonus for doing that.
Ms. Garvey. Controller in charge.
Controller-In-Charge Program
Mr. Rogers. Controller in charge. What do you say about
that?
Ms. Garvey. I think it is a very good program. As I pointed
out earlier, I think it is a program that has been used in
small facilities for a long time at the FAA. I think the real
question is--and these are legitimate questions--are we
implementing it in the best possible way, are there any
improvements that we can make to it.
Mr. Rogers. Is it limited just to small airports?
Ms. Garvey. No, it is not, Mr. Chairman. I said it was used
originally in small airports, but it has been expanded under
the contract.
Mr. Rogers. Is it a good thing in the big airports?
Ms. Garvey. To use some of them for controller in charge, I
think it is good.
Mr. Rogers. I asked you when we were here before two weeks
about Kansas City, where I am told--or you told us, I think,
there was one controller who was making $174,000. Was that the
Kansas City operation we were talking about?
Ms. Garvey. Actually, I think it was Mr. Mead, Mr.
Chairman, who raised this at the hearing that he was at and we
did look at that. It was actually a controller in Washington
center and, as you know, that is one of our busiest facilities.
That particular controller has been a controller for 30
years, worked every bit of overtime, every bit of premium that
he could. In fact, we broke down his schedule and it looked
like he added a shift every week. So that was the rationale and
we provided that to the Inspector General.
Mr. Rogers. Well, on the CICs--is that what you said?
Ms. Garvey. CIC.
Mr. Rogers. Controller in charge.
Ms. Garvey. Controller in charge.
Mr. Rogers. He is a regular controller who takes over one
day a week to supervise the others. Do you plan to continue
that?
Ms. Garvey. Well, we have an evaluation in June. We do plan
to continue it, but we will evaluate it in June and see what we
learn, see how it is going, what recommendations we make for
either changing or strengthening the program.
Mr. Fisher. Mr. Rogers, could I comment, sir?
Mr. Rogers. Please.
Mr. Fisher. Thank you. Ms. Garvey is indicating, and I
would like to say that it would be so, that the managers at
each facility have the right to say it is not working in our
facility because the operational errors and runway incursions
are so high. To my knowledge, there is not a manager out there
who has said that.
In fact, in the terminal facilities throughout the country,
they have all embraced the CIC. They have embraced the fact
that all controllers will be CICs because they have no choice
but to. That is a concern because now management does not have
the right to select. That is one of the problems that we see
with the program.
Mr. Rogers. Do they pick the CICs regardless of experience?
Mr. Fisher. Affirmative.
Mr. Rogers. That is a yes?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, it is.
Mr. Rogers. So a controller that has one year or less of
experience could be controlling or supervising the balance of
the controllers in the tower?
Mr. Fisher. That is correct. That can be done.
Mr. Rogers. Because they rotate this every day, so that
everybody gets to be a controller at some point in time. Is
that correct?
Mr. Fisher. Yes.
Mr. Eickenberg. If I may, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Sabo. Mr. Chairman, I notice folks in the audience
shaking their heads.
Mr. Rogers. We have to have a little order here.
Some folks say that is not true. What do you say to that?
Mr. Eickenberg. I would have to say that--I come from a
facility, I manage a small facility, and we use CICs and CICs
have been used for years. The role, though, was different. The
role of the CIC in the past was an adjunct to the supervisor.
If the supervisor took a break, went out to have a cigarette,
went to have lunch, he/she placed the controller in charge and
said, If you run into a problem, you know where to find me. The
controller in charge was able to monitor the operation and, if
things were easy enough to handle, handled them. If it became
very serious, the controller knew where to reach the next level
of supervision to get the assistance that he/she needed.
Today, we are talking about replacing the supervisor with
the CIC. Now the CIC has to make the determination what to do.
And, in my facility, while it does work at times, as the issues
get more serious, it does not work. The CIC does not make the
decisions that are the same as a supervisor would make.
And I would have to say that in my case, we have had to
allow all the controllers to become CICs because of a staffing
situation. If we do not certify all of them, due to the limited
staffing nature and the rotational shifts, we will operate with
an opening one morning where if we only designate a limited
number, I can conceivably have the facility open without
someone qualified to be either the controller in charge or the
supervisor because I am having to work whole days and whole
shifts without a supervisor present.
So at that point, if I do not have everyone certified, I do
not have the tools by which to keep supervision in the
facility, both upstairs and downstairs.
Controller-In-Charge Experience
Mr. Rogers. So I think I hear you saying that theoretically
an inexperienced controller would be the controller in charge
for a period of time. In theory. But in practice, is that true?
Mr. Eickenberg. In practice, it happens. It happens on an
everyday basis that you have to rotate the responsibility
amongst the people that you have available and there are days
when there are not as many experienced controllers available,
so we would then use whoever is available. We will attempt to
make the choice of the best available, but there is still going
to be some very inexperienced people.
Mr. Rogers. Well, Ms. Garvey, it is in your records, I
think. You would have records on this, would you not?
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Would you furnish that for us?
Ms. Garvey. We certainly will.
Mr. Rogers. So that we can settle the question once and for
all by the records.
Ms. Garvey. I would be very happy to do that, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. All right. And we will file that as part of the
hearing record.
[The information follows:]
Prior to the changes we have made to the program, all
persons with technical certification would have been eligible
to perform as controllers-in-charge. Today, approximately 62
percent of terminal and en route air traffic control
specialists are ``eligible'' to be assigned CIC duties.
Eligibility is defined as being selected for additional
training, completing the training, and being certified as
capable of performing the full range of the duties for the
position by their supervisor/manager. This group was selected
from a population that had previously performed a majority of
these duties. A facility manager will validate the employee's
skill level after prerequisite for additional training is
completed.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sweeney, you have been waiting long and
patiently.
Airport Improvement Program Obligations
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me welcome the panelists. I have a number of technical
questions, but to dovetail a little bit on Mr. Callahan's
subtle question earlier, someone once said imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery but more to establish a relationship
with Sonny I think I already have, let me say that we warmly
welcome you and I have the Albany Airport, I have, I think,
nine regional county airports, I have Stewart that services us,
we are all keeping lists for back at the office, Administrator
Garvey.
I will start with one of those questions. In last year's
hearing report on pages 525 and 526, there is a list of AIP
projects for which obligations incurred more than two years ago
no dollars and expenditures have been made. Three of those
airports are in New York, I think LaGuardia is one, I know
Stewart is one, Stewart is a $7.5 million figure, and for
Stewart Airport, given what we want to do there, you know one
of my ideas and plans along with a lot of other folks is to try
to use Stewart as an offset to some of the congestion in the
New York metropolitan area. Can you give me an update,
Administrator? I do not need it today, but by the end of the
week at least, in terms of what the status is?
Ms. Garvey. Certainly, Congressman. I believe it is pretty
good news.
[The information follows:]
LaGuardia Airport, Flushing, NY, $1,216,000.
On January 10, 2001, an initial payment of $772,622 was
made for the soundproofing of public school number 146B, Bronx,
New York, Phase 2. The remaining $443,378 for this project will
be used to complete the soundproofing project.
Stewart Airport, Newburgh, NY, $5,097,277.
The $5,097,277 grant used funds from the Military Airport
Program for the relocation of an airfield lighting control
vault. The vault will house FAA navigational aid equipment
including those used for approach lighting, Instrument Landing
System, Precision Approach Path Indicator, and Visual Approach
Slope Indicator. The grant will also fund the relocation of
Taxilane C. The project design is currently 90 percent
complete. It is scheduled for bid September 2001. On February
28, 2001, an initial payment was made for $67,249. The FAA
expects that the remaining funds will be applied toward the
work identified above.
Stewart Airport, Newburgh, NY, $1,174,081.
The $1,174,081 grant was used for the expansion of the
Northwest cargo apron (Phase 4). On February 21, 2001, a final
payment was made in the amount of $936,796 and the grant was
closed. A recovery of Federal funds was made for $237,285.
E. 34th Street, New York, NY, $488,099.
The $488,099, grant was used for the development of a New
York City helicopter study. On November 25, 2000, a final
payment was made in the amount of $298,237 and the grant was
closed. A recovery of federal funds was made for $189,862.
Airspace Redesign
Mr. Sweeney. And to get a little more specific, in some of
your earlier questioning, in response to what you said, there
is no national runway system and you have made the point that
those systems need to be localized in many respects.
Confusing air space design along the eastern seaboard is
something at the prior hearing we held we talked an awful lot
about and how it contributes to the choke points and it
increases delays, it causes controllers huge problems in the
need to continually transfer authority of planes.
It convulses the system in many respects nationwide, so it
is kind of a significant place and point to kind of look at.
Have you got a plan there? Is there an update on the status
of the development of such planning? Is there a redesign in
place? Where are we with that?
Ms. Garvey. In terms of LaGuardia specifically, you are
absolutely right. An airport like that contributes
significantly to the system. When you look at delays at
LaGuardia and, as I guess at your hearing two weeks ago, Mr.
Chairman, I think one of the afternoon panelists laid out very
well the impact that LaGuardia has on the rest of the system. I
think we have to think of it almost in two ways, the short-term
and the longer term. For the short-term, as you know,
Congressman, we have had the lottery in place. Yesterday, the
Port Authority was in to talk about sort of what steps beyond
the lottery might make sense. I have not yet been briefed on
that, but I understand it was a very good meeting. I suspect
that they came forward with a couple of ideas on demand
management that we would like to put in the Federal Register
and get some comments. The concern we continue to have, as I
mentioned before, is the access to small communities which are
certainly the communities that you care about. In addition, we
are looking at a number of procedural changes. Some of the
controllers that are here today are working very hard to make
some changes to the procedures as you are going in and out of
New York's very crowded air space so we can make more efficient
use of it. And some of the technologies, Departure Sequencing
Program, a spacing tool that the controllers can use, those are
some of the shorter term strategies as well that we are
undertaking.And then finally, as you have indicated, the larger
issue about redesigning the air space is, very challenging. I
know you live it with your communities, every time you move the
air space to another area, you create different environmental
issues.
We are focused on the high altitudes first where there are
not so much of the environmental issues, but certainly that
area in New York is a real high focus for us for redesigning
that air space.
Mr. Sweeney. The Port Authority folks have contacted me.
They are coming in as well.
Ms. Garvey. Oh, good.
Mr. Sweeney. I would like to meet with you privately or
with staff at least to ``talk'' a little bit about some
planning.
Ms. Garvey. I would like to do that very much. Thank you.
FAA organization
Mr. Sweeney. Every hugely successful CEO in the world talks
about the layers and the levels of management that are required
for a successful organization, whether it is Jack Welch or
Buffett or any of those folks, and they say essentially there
ought to be six levels. And so I am kind of approaching it from
a real broad perspective. The chairman provided a chart earlier
that looked at the cost of DOT. What levels of management exist
at the FAA? How many?
Ms. Garvey. Too many is probably the short answer. I think
I mentioned earlier we are really attempting to sort of change
the way we do business, to approach things very differently, to
do some reorganization. As I know you have heard from some of
the panel members, there are different points of view about
that, but I think certainly when you think about a bureaucracy
as large as the FAA is, you have to ask yourself if there are
different ways that we can organize, if there are different
ways that we can approach some of these issues.
I will tell you one thing we are doing that I think holds a
lot of promise and that is creating what is called the terminal
business unit. We have a tendency to think in terms of programs
and not in terms of services. In response to some issues we
have heard from Congress, some issues we have heard from some
of our customers, we are pulling our folks together who are
working on all of the terminal activities in the terminal area
and organizing them that way, so we are focused on the service,
not on the project.
Mr. Sweeney. I do not mean to pick on you, but I still am
not certain how many levels of management we have. And maybe
you could help direct us at some point, but in earlier
questioning, I think it was in response to some things that Mr.
Fisher asked, you were asked the question what ratio you would
recommend, supervisors to controllers. I do not think I heard
an answer. Do you have one? Are you developing one? Is there a
study on one?
Ms. Garvey. We think that the ratio ten to one is a very
achievable ratio. As Congressman Tiahrt pointed out, business
and even in government, the reduction has been to reduce those
levels. Having said that, I want to be very clear that I do
agree with John Fisher and with Art when they talk about also
being concerned about safety. As we do this, we are doing it
very slowly and there are some facilities where that will never
happen. It just simply will not happen. The managers will say
this is not the right number here, we need more here for the
following reasons and we will respect that.
Mr. Sweeney. And I want to make two quick points. One, the
CICs are collectively bargaining, correct?
Airport Movement Area Safety System
Ms. Garvey. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Sweeney. Just for my own thinking. And Chairwoman
Carmody, I have one brief question. I have others, but I will
wait and come back to them.
The NTSB does not believe that AMASS, the FAA's solution
for runway incursion, as it is currently designed meets the
safety goals of the original planning and the original system
ten years ago. The project is now $92 million over budget and a
year late, correct? Any ideas?
Ms. Carmody. First of all, with respect to AMASS, it was
the FAA that said it did not meet the design that FAA
originally had set forth. The parameters did not allow adequate
response time on the part of controllers or flight crews to
react to an event. It would prevent collisions, but not
incursions.
In terms of any ideas, our recommendation, which the board
put forth this summer, for a ground-based system was one which
would put an alert not only in the tower, but to the flight
crew. In other words, the cockpit and the tower both need to be
alerted to what is going on on the runway. And AMASS as
currently envisioned does not include that capability.
Mr. Sweeney. So what do we do about AMASS?
Ms. Carmody. I will ask Ms. Garvey to answer that. We are
concerned that AMASS is not there yet. It is being tested in
San Francisco now and, as I said earlier, apparently that test
has not been successful and it does not include the capability
for alerting flight crews, so it is not responsive to what the
recommendation of the board was.
Ms. Garvey. Just a word on AMASS. We need to get to the
Board and brief them because I do think that the more recent
testing is very positive. We are still scheduled for June and
we are going to stay with that. In terms of accountability,
Steve Zaidman, who I think is still here, actually has his
bonus which you referred to earlier, Mr. Chairman, his is tied
to delivering eight AMASS systems by September. So that would
be Steve Z-a-i-d-m-a-n. Carol is absolutely right when she said
it did not--the technology is just not advanced to do some of
the things that the NTSB is talking about. It is a still a good
technology. It is, as someone said earlier, really a good tool.
The challenges that we have had with AMASS is that it has given
some false alerts and that has really been the technology
challenge that we have had. It has created too many false
alerts. And if you have that kind of a situation, controllers
are not going to pay attention to the tool. I saw the AMASS
program director this morning in the elevator and asked are we
still going to make that June deadline? He said, yes, the
latest test was very good, we are going to get initial
operating capacity this month, April, in San Francisco,
commissioning in June. And Steve will deliver the others by
September. So I think it is a good tool. I think in Ms.
Carmody's testimony she also refers to some very promising
technologies that NASA is working on and we are working very
closely with them. So I think we are always going to be
evolving with runway incursions.
Mr. Sweeney. All right. I will yield back.
PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Sweeney.
Let us talk a bit about accountability. When the IG
appeared before the subcommittee three weeks ago, he said if
the FAA could take only one action to improve its management he
would recommend holding managers and other employees
accountable for their performance and that echoes a 1996 letter
from the then-IG, a different one, which said there is a common
thread in FAA management abuses. That thread is the mind set
within FAA that mangers are not held accountable for decisions
that reflect poor judgment. He says ``Until senior FAA
management is willing to send a different message, I suspect
the pattern of abuse we identified will, unfortunately,
continue.'' And in committee testimony, she, the then-IG, said
``The FAA tolerates poor judgment and protects bad
management.'' What do you say about that?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, I am only going to speak about
the three years I have been there at the FAA and certainly I
think for all of us in government, it is not an easy issue. I
made a note of your comment this morning and I would disagree
with the IG and he is someone I am professionally very close to
and spend a lot of time with. I think in the three years that
we have been there that if you look at the programs that were
trouble, you will find that we have new managers there, so I
think in every one of those programs we have made some
significant changes. As I mentioned to you yesterday, I think
one of the great challenges for anybody in government--
actually, it is anybody in any management position--is to
sometimes determine whether someone just is not doing their job
or whether or not they are in the wrong fit.
NATIONAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW SURVEY
Mr. Rogers. Well, if we do not believe the IG, let us talk
to the employees and according to FAA surveys, when employees
were asked in a national performance review survey whether
``corrective actions are taken when employees do not meet
performance standards'' only 22 percent agreed, one in five; 51
percent disagreed, saying in effect that corrective actions are
not taken when employees do not meet performance standards.
Similar results were seen in the annual employee survey. But in
the NPR survey, when your own employees were asked ``Are you
clear about how good performance is defined in your
organization'' only 20 percent agreed, one in five agreed with
that, even less than what was reported by the INS, 25 percent
over there.
And you know my feelings about the INS.
Ms. Garvey. I do, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. And far below the government-wide average of 31
percent.
Now, do you want to talk about that?
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely. In fact, I was just going to get to
that point. First of all, I was very concerned when we saw both
the NPR and then our own survey, which was very similar, which
I think was probably much broader. We peeled that away a little
bit. I will tell you that I think when you get into the
employee survey what you find is that the closer the supervisor
is to the employee the more accountable they think they are. In
other words, if we peel it back, there becomes more and more
dissatisfaction on the employee's part as they go up the
management chain. They probably, quite honestly, have a lot
less sense of accountability with the further they get away
from their own management chain. First line supervisors do
pretty well with the employees. But I will tell you there are
two action items following that, and actually, one really
significant action item. We looked at that, we talked to the
employees even more. One of the things that was mentioned
earlier, the National Public Managers (NPM) Report that we had
done on personnel reform a couple of years ago. One of the
suggestions from the NPR Report was to do the 360 evaluation,
where the employees get to evaluate the managers as well. We
are right now doing the kind of training, doing the kind of
work we need to do to prepare for that. But one last comment,
Mr. Chairman, and then I promise you I will stop. I think I
have always got to ask myself if I am holding people
accountable enough and I think your challenge to us has been
very clear. I think we have made some progress. I do not in any
way want to suggest that we are fully there yet, and I will
keep working on it.
PERSONNEL REFORM
Mr. Rogers. Well, I do not want this to be taken as
personal criticism. It is not that at all. I am really
criticizing the system, which I think allows an unaccountable
employee to get by. In April of 1996 at congressional
direction, FAA was allowed to develop its own personnel and
payroll systems so that you would have more flexibility and you
could keep pace with the fast growing industry, a rapidly
growing aviation industry. DOT argued that the agency needed to
be more nimble and fleet footed in order to pay people what the
job required and then to move them where the work was needed,
so we gave FAA really wide latitude.
Five years after that time, after that personnel reform
began, there is a good deal of evidence that it has been a
total failure. The IG said two weeks ago that the lasting
legacy of reform was little more than a huge pay raise for air
traffic controllers, certainly not what was intended by the
legislation in 1996. An independent study by the National
Academy of Public Administration, NAPA, says that FAA has not
met many of the key goals of personnel reform.
Here are some results from the FAA's own employee surveys
about the success of personnel reform: Nine percent agreed that
``Personnel reform has been successful in eliminating excessive
bureaucracy,'' less than one in ten agreed with that.
``Personnel reform is helping my organization accomplish its
mission,'' 9 percent, one in ten. ``In the past two years, I
have seen positive change in the emphasis that FAA places on
managing people,'' 17 percent agreed, 55 percent disagreed.
``Creativity and innovation are rewarded,'' 17 percent agreed
and that is even below INS, which was at 26 percent, the
government-wide average of 31 percent. Given the information
from that study and your own survey, would you say that you
have met your goals or even come close to them in personnel
reform?
Ms. Garvey. I think personnel reform is a mixed bag from
our perspective, from how well we have done. I think it has
given us the flexibility to hire some outside people and I
think we have been successful in doing that. The hardest part
about personnel reform is, in my view, moving from a tenured
pay system to a pay for performance. It is change, it is hard,
it is tough. The National Academy study that you referred to
said something, though, that was also very important. It said
this is the right track, you have to stay the course. They made
a series of recommendations to us, a couple of years ago. We
have been able to move on some of them. I think we still have a
long way to go in terms of training, both training for our
managers and training for our employees. It is very tough, but
I do think we have made some progress.
BONUSES
Mr. Rogers. At the same time, the head of personnel was
given a large performance bonus, correct?
Ms. Garvey. The head of my personnel office? I am sorry? Is
that--OPM or----
Mr. Rogers. Your personnel head.
Ms. Garvey. Let me go back and look at that number.
Mr. Rogers. Yes. An executive bonus to the head of human
resources. She got a big bonus and I do not know what for. Can
you help me with that?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I think actually the work that has been
done in personnel reform and I am trying, you know, to be
realistic about this, has also been very significant as well. I
think we have done a lot of work in this area. I think we have
been able to recruit some additional people that we would not
have otherwise. I think we have been able to streamline the
processes. We have brought people on faster than we ever have
before, particularly in the headquarters, people from outside
the agency. So I think there is a lot.
Mr. Rogers. If all that is true, then you have certainly
fooled the IG and most of the employees.
Ms. Garvey. I would like to follow up a little bit more
with the IG on that and I certainly will.
Mr. Rogers. Well, the IG is not your problem. I hate to say
it, but we are worse than he is and we will be writing the
checks and I am not happy with reform. The only thing that has
resulted that I have seen and we can find evidence of is higher
salaries, but as far as getting the work done and stopping
these delays and doing all of the myriad of things we have
heard about, it is just not happening.
We have another vote on the floor. We will have to recess
for a few minutes and we shall return briefly.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
[Recess.]
REGULATION AND CERTIFICATION
Mr. Rogers. The committee will be in order. Let me get into
some of the oversight questions by the field reps. Ms. Garvey,
your field inspectors got together last summer and had some
very frank discussions about problems in their surveillance and
oversight of industry. The head of flight standards, Mr. Nick
Lacey, began the meeting by saying ``We are here because we are
in big trouble. Jane Garvey is in big trouble. All of us. It is
about the fundamentals of how we perform our job.'' What is he
talking about?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, that was a meeting that was held
in Washington, bringing in all the division managers, and it
was actually after the Alaska Air accident. I think any time
you have a terrible accident like that you have to ask yourself
are we doing everything we can? Should we be refocusing our
efforts and I think that was really the head of our Regulation
and Certification Office, Mr. McSweeny's effort to do just as
you are suggesting. We have to stay focused, we have to be
accountable, we have to pay attention to what we are doing. It
was a very frank and open discussion, and I do not imagine Mr.
McSweeny ever expected the minutes to be made public.
Mr. Rogers. He also talked about a number of performance
failures in the organization. Do you know what he was referring
to?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, I would have to go back and talk
with Mr. McSweeny. I do not remember those specifically.
AIR TRANSPORTATION OVERSIGHT SYSTEM
Mr. Rogers. Well, field personnel were especially critical,
saying that current surveillance techniques, and what we are
talking about here is the surveillance of manufacturers of
planes, repairs of planes, maintenance of planes and the like,
the things that the two gentlemen to your left are involved in,
the field personnel were saying that current surveillance
techniques were not working and that the Director of Flight
Standards does not return the phone calls or e-mails of his
field staff. Can you refute that?
Ms. Garvey. The conversation or the discussion was focused
on the ATOS program, as you indicated, the surveillance
program, and a number of questions were raised about whether or
not it was being implemented quite as well as we would like.
Since that time, I want to stress this again and again, in
terms of the ATOS program we are meeting every other week on
that program, working with both the unions and our inspectors,
because of some issues that they have raised. They are good
issues. We agree with a lot of them. We have made a number of
changes, recommendations to the program. It is a brand new
program for us. That is, we are really moving from a
traditional way of inspecting to much more of a systems
approach and, quite honestly, it is like a lot of things we are
doing there. It is different, it is a change. We are learning
every single day, and we are making the changes as we go along.
So it was really focused on ATOS. The inspectors, the division
managers and subsequently the inspectors have come up with some
very constructive recommendations for changes and implementing
those changes.
BONUSES
Mr. Rogers. My question was why does he not return his
phone calls?
Ms. Garvey. I am sorry. I was focused on the ATOS.
Some of the division managers raised with Mr. Lacey the
problem of his getting back to them and he acknowledged that
and my understanding is he has really been doing much better on
that. What else can I say?
Mr. Rogers. He must be because only five minutes after that
meeting you gave him a bonus. The head of regulatory affairs at
FAA Mr. McSweeny and his deputy, Ms. Gilligan, each received
executive bonuses of $8000; the Head of Flight Standards, Mr.
Lacey, a $6300 bonus; at or above the FAA-wide average award.
They deserve that, obviously?
Ms. Garvey. They do a lot of very good work, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. What do you all say about that, Mr. DeBerry,
Mr. Kerner? Be frank with us, now. No one is listening.
Mr. Kerner. It is difficult to comment on that.
Mr. Rogers. Why? Why is it difficult?
Mr. Kerner. It is always difficult to comment on your
superiors, but I would say everybody in the FAA tries to do the
best job that is possible. I think we could possibly do a
better job.
Mr. Rogers. Well, is that a good job? One in four flights
delayed or canceled and all the ills and problems we have heard
before this subcommittee about service that airlines and air
fleet in the country is performing? Are we not right to ask
questions about can we not improve upon the service and the
safety? Safety, thank God, has been good, but service is
another thing.
Mr. Kerner. There is always room for improvement.
Mr. Rogers. All right. Mr. DeBerry?
Mr. DeBerry. Mr. Chairman, I am speaking from the
perspective of a mere foot soldier out in the field. I can tell
you that from my perspective there is a lack of communication
from the regional level to the office manager.
My perspective is that we are told to complete the R items
and that is the emphasis and as the situation changes from my
perspective, the emphasis is not placed on that change.
Mr. Rogers. The emphasis is not placed on what?
Mr. DeBerry. Well, the aviation environment or arena is
ever changing and it requires redirection of forces, money,
manpower and I do not think necessarily that emphasis is placed
on that change.
So what I am saying is I think there is a lack of
communication of acceptable goals and behaviors from the
regional level down to the office manager.
faa and industry relations
Mr. Rogers. Well, you are in a funny place because you are
inspecting airlines' equipment and you are the regulatory body
over airlines and yet the FAA has been accused by some of being
too cozy with industry. Do you feel like you are too cozy with
industry as you do your inspections out there?
Mr. Kerner. If you would read my testimony, sir, I am a
principal maintenance inspector for a part 121 carrier and I
would invite you to call him and ask them if I am very cozy.
They will tell you that I am absolutely not. I am referred to
as the bad cop and if it is wrong, it is wrong. I do not go
into the gray areas. Either they meet it or they do not. If
they do not, I take action. I am not saying that action always
comes to fruition, I am just saying that I take action and I
document the findings that I discover.
civil penalty violations
Mr. Rogers. Have you ever seen an instance or know of an
instance where inspectors were told to back off of taking some
enforcement action by management because of complaints or
pressure from an airline or other part of the industry to back
off? Do you know of such an instance?
Mr. DeBerry. I would say to you, Mr. Chairman, that you may
or may not know that any civil penalty over $50,000 is
reportable to the American public. In some instances after we
apply what our handbook says to each one of the civil
penalties, say for example if an aircraft was flying not in
compliance with an Airworthiness Directive, it flew 150
flights, we would apply $11,000 times 150 flights times the
number of ADs and in some instances once it reaches legal that
penalty is adjudicated down.
Mr. Rogers. What do you mean?
Mr. DeBerry. Well, we may ask for the maximum penalty
according to the handbook. Say, for example, $11,000 per
violation. Once it reaches legal, we may get calls back from
the legal office to say basically, you know, we think that,
say, instead of a $184,000 fine we think maybe a $75,000 or
$85,000 fine would be more appropriate in this circumstance
based upon the criticality of the incident in their opinion.
Mr. Rogers. Have you had a problem with any of those that
you have seen so-called watered down in that fashion?
Mr. DeBerry. Personally, I have not, but there are
instances out there, yes.
Mr. Rogers. Instances of what?
Mr. DeBerry. Well, for example, inspectors--I have personal
knowledge of inspectors that have written violations that, say,
for example, override an airworthiness directive, a required
inspection and because maybe the legal did not understand it,
maybe because of the inspectors when they put it together did
not put it together exactly correct, the civil penalty would be
lessened or reduced.
Mr. Rogers. Are you saying that it was done to cozy up to
the industry or just that there was some flaw in the paperwork
or something that required----
Mr. DeBerry. It could have been a flaw in the paperwork. I
am not saying that there--in no way, shape or form am I saying
that legal or the regional office or the administrator is cozy
with the industry, I am just saying that there could have been
a flaw in the paperwork.
Mr. Rogers. I see. Mr. Kerner, in your statement, you say
that FAA frequently ``waters down'' recommended fines to a
fraction of the amount recommended by the inspector. Would you
mind explaining that for us? What do you mean?
Mr. Kerner. Based on my experience, Mr. Chairman, one case
that I know of per se, based on our guidelines and the
infraction and the efforts that were taken to obtain
compliance, as Mr. DeBerry alluded to, sometimes the fine would
have well exceeded the ability of the carrier to be able to
sustain that fine, so the fine was reduced to a considerably
lesser dollar amount.
Mr. Rogers. Do you see anything wrong with the way it was
handled or done?
Mr. Kerner. Just that it is tough--sometimes it is very
difficult to be able to determine a sanction and make sure you
appropriately weigh the sanction as compared to what the
infraction was and to use that as a means to obtain compliance.
Obviously compliance is our main goal, it is to get the carrier
or the airman or the agency into compliance.
Mr. Rogers. Was this a serious violation?
Mr. Kerner. Yes, it was.
Mr. Rogers. What was it?
Mr. Kerner. It had to do with non-conformity on an
aircraft.
Mr. Rogers. What do you mean?
Mr. Kerner. There was a non-conformity that had to deal
with the stall strip, which is on the wing boot. And this
specific--what the specific infraction was was the actual
location of the stall strip on the wing de-ice boot was in the
incorrect location and had been installed improperly.
Mr. Rogers. Is that dangerous?
Mr. Kerner. Yes, it was very dangerous because it
determines the stall speed of the aircraft and it is
specifically critical when the aircraft has to--it has a
dramatic effect on the single engine operation of the aircraft
if an engine was lost.
Mr. Rogers. And the airline had failed to correct it?
Mr. Kerner. It took some time to get them to correct it.
Mr. Rogers. Some time? How long?
Mr. Kerner. I would have to check the file to be exact, to
give you an exact date, but I would----
Mr. Rogers. Minutes or days?
Mr. Kerner. Days.
Mr. Rogers. Days. In the meantime, the plane was flying?
Mr. Kerner. Yes. They failed to take action.
Mr. Rogers. I am sorry?
Mr. Kerner. They failed to take action.
Mr. Rogers. But in the meantime, the plane was flying.
Mr. Kerner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. With this condition that you considered
dangerous.
Mr. Kerner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. And the fine was--well, I guess they were cited
by the inspectors for a violation and do you set a dollar
figure? Who sets the fine figure?
Mr. Kerner. Through the recommendation in our report, the
dollar figure was exorbitant following the FAA guidelines that
we are held to.
Mr. Rogers. And how much was the charge that was initially
made?
Mr. Kerner. I cannot give you an exact quote, but I would
say it was well over $51 million.
Mr. Rogers. $51 million?
Mr. Kerner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. And what was it finally settled out for?
Mr. Kerner. I believe it was $90,000.
Mr. Rogers. $90,000?
Mr. Kerner. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. I am not asking you for the name, perhaps it is
privileged, I do not know about legal proceedings here, but is
this a major carrier?
Mr. Kerner. No, it is a major regional carrier.
Mr. Rogers. When did this take place?
Mr. Kerner. I believe December of 1999.
Mr. Rogers. And do you know of other similar instances
where this type of thing has taken place?
Mr. Kerner. Not of any other specific instances or non-
conformities.
Mr. Rogers. Who specifically reduced the fine to $90,000?
Mr. Kerner. I think that was the fine that was finally
agreed to in settlement.
Mr. Rogers. By whom?
Mr. Kerner. I believe the legal department.
Mr. Rogers. Out of where?
Mr. Kerner. The regional level.
Mr. Rogers. Where is that?
Mr. Kerner. Our Great Lakes region.
Mr. Rogers. Where is that?
Mr. Kerner. In Chicago. FAA flight center in Chicago.
Mr. Rogers. This was in 1999?
Mr. Kerner. I believe 1999, sir. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. Did they explain to you that you were mistaken
or this was not as big as we thought it was or something? Did
you get an explanation of what happened?
Mr. Kerner. It was not specifically my case. I am aware of
it, but I was not involved.
Mr. Rogers. Well, were you aware--did they later come along
and explain to somebody that this was the reason for the
reduction?
Mr. Kerner. I think so.
Mr. Rogers. What was it?
Mr. Kerner. Because of the amount of the fine and based on
the fact that we finally did get compliance, compliance was
obtained, that it was an adequate fine.
Mr. Rogers. But the reasoning was that the fine that was
originally leveled would have broken the airline financially?
Mr. Kerner. Yes.
faa management of stars program
Mr. Rogers. Do you have any questions, Mr. Sabo?
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I should
indicate for the record to Mr. Eickenberg and Mr. Fisher to say
that while you were describing the CIC program, the air traffic
controllers present today were vehemently shaking their heads
in disagreement and we will have to get their view of how that
program works also, but obviously there is disagreement.
I am curious about the whole question of management within
the FAA. I recall the problem we had with the Standard Terminal
Automation Replacement System (STARS) program where we had
major problems and it was only after this committee intervened
that we got the controllers involved in looking at how the
consoles worked and the whole planning process had gone on and
there was not a desire to talk to the people who actually
delivered the service. And I am just curious from some of the
other discussion I have heard, it sounds somewhat similar.
And I find that happens quite often throughout the federal
government that there are folks on one level and they rarely
talk to the people who actually deliver service or produce
goods, there is sort of the status or something that
interferes.
To what degree is that a problem and is the type of problem
we had with STARS typical of other problems in relationship
between managers and line people? Or was that an aberration?
Ms. Garvey. I think, Congressman, any time you have an
agency as large as the FAA it is an issue. You have to be aware
of it. And I am sure it is true in the private sector as well.
Are you communicating what you need to communicate, are you
involving the people you need to involve, I think that is
absolutely critical.
I remember the concerns with STARS well. I had just come on
board in August and I remember it was my first hearing, I
think. As I said earlier, and I really mean it, I think every
place we have been successful in the last three years is when
we have involved the workforce, whether it is STARS or any of
the other technologies. We have turned that around. They are on
every single one of those programs, which I think is critical.
The inspectors mentioned some of the issues around ATOS and
I think you are right, it has some of the same elements. In
other words, you really have to involve the people who are on
the field and working it. So what we are doing with ATOS is a
very similar approach, which is bringing in some of the past
inspectors and also the union leadership to our meetings every
other week.And I have to say that some of the recommendations
that have come out of that, because they are on the front line,
are much more practical, useful and I think really get to the
point. And we are implementing those. So we have to look for
all of those opportunities to do it. You always wonder if you
are doing it enough. I listened to Keith's comments about some
of the regional communication from that level and it sounds
like we need to continue to focus and work on that. So we will
continue to do it. It is a big challenge and a big job.
ENVIRONMENTAL STREAMLINING
Mr. Sabo. One of the other issues that concerns me, and I
am not sure what the agency has in mind, is environmental
streamlining. I hear all the push for building more runways and
I understand that and I understand the need for building
capacity, but it also strikes me that the problems that are
associated with building that capacity, particularly as it
relates to noise, are immense and the type of noise that
impacts communities who are discovering it is more diverse than
simply overhead noise. My understanding is that increased air
traffic also has impact on air pollution to a certain
significant degree. I am just curious as you move to this
streamlining process, how are you going to make sure that some
of these very import environmental concerns to neighborhoods,
the surrounding neighborhoods, are not lengthened? Because I
discovered the process today is not quite--in dealing with some
of the concerns that relate to noise and other pollution,
questions that relate to airport expansion.
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Sabo, I thought you were--you certainly
again have lived with this issue along with, I know, a number
of the communities that you represent.
Mr. Sabo. Daily.
Ms. Garvey. And I will go back to something the Secretary
has said, which is in streamlining the process we do not want
to shortchange the process in any way. There is no substitute
for creating the kind of local consensus and dealing with some
of the community issues that you need to deal with. And I think
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the NEPA process,
really does respect that. I think what we are focused on some
of the administrative changes that we might be able to make, do
some work simultaneously rather than sequentially. Is there
better coordination at the federal level? In Seattle, for
example, the airport director has run into a real issue very
late in the process with another federal agency. There is a
legitimate question about whether or not that coordination,
particularly among the federal agencies, could happen in a more
orchestrated way and perhaps happen earlier in the process. But
certainly the issues about noise, the issues about community
concerns are very real and as we move through with these
projects and as we look at what some of the streamlining has to
be, we cannot lose sight of that. I said the other day and it
is true from my perspective, I have been around public works
projects since 1983. I have never seen a public works project
succeed without some sort of a critical local support and that
often means working very closely with those neighborhoods to
make sure that the right mitigation is put in place. That is a
big issue.
Mr. Sabo. Frankly, streamlining so that we get some
decisions on mitigation more quickly would be helpful.
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely.
Mr. Sabo. And what I am fearful of is that there are other
aspects that will be streamlined and that process will be as
slow as ever.
Ms. Garvey. Good point and I think that is a good caution.
Some have suggested, too, that as we look at mitigation we
might want to think about expanding what some of the airport
dollars could be used for communities and mitigation. I think
that is probably a legitimate issue to look at.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Tiahrt?
CONTROLLER PAY
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Earlier today, we talked about an air traffic controller
that made $175,000 and I think you made the comment that you
went back and reviewed it and that he was working an extra
shift a week. Did I hear that right?
Ms. Garvey. I believe that is right. Yes, Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. So a normal shift is 40 hours a week, so he is
working 80 hours a week? Is that the way I would understand
that?
Ms. Garvey. It is not that long and I am going to have to
turn to one of the experts. It is an extra eight hours, so that
would bring it to 48.
Mr. Tiahrt. So it is like 48 hours.
Ms. Garvey. Yes. I am sorry.
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. Well, I am fearless and that kind of
scared me.
Ms. Garvey. Okay. Great. All right. I am glad we clarified
that.
Mr. Tiahrt. What is the standard week for air traffic
controllers? Do we know? Is it like 44 hours a week? Is it a
40-hour week?
Ms. Garvey. I am going to turn to one of the experts.
Mr. Tiahrt. Forty hours a week? Okay. The record shows 40
from the air traffic controllers who do the job. I guess that
is good enough for me.
RUNWAY INCURSION SURFACE INCIDENTS
Mr. Tiahrt Mr. Fisher, I know you are trying to preserve
your voice and I apologize for asking so many questions. I am
looking at your chart and I went through your testimony to try
to make some correlation.
I assumed that the reason for the chart was that we are
making an argument that we need to have somewhere between six
and seven employees for each supervisor and so I was sort of
relating to your chart. Maybe I have gotten off on the wrong
track, but if I look at the air carrier delays, that would
include delays from weather, from mechanical delays. I guess I
do not know which definition of delays you are using in your
chart. We just established one definition today. Is it similar
to the one that we established today?
Mr. Fisher. Yes, sir. I believe so. And that would be on
the air carrier delays, but the other three graphs indicate
what we are doing now.
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. So if we look at service incidents, a
service incident is when you have somebody in the path of an
airplane or some place where they should not be, it could be a
baggage handler, it could be a fuel truck, it could be a
private aircraft, so it could be some people that are not in
contact with the control tower. Is that true?
Mr. Fisher. Well, if they are not, they should be. Airport
rules would require them if they are going to be on a taxiway
or runway to have two-way communication.
Mr. Tiahrt. But it could be outside the direct contact--
could it be outside the direct contact of an air traffic
controller?
Mr. Fisher. No, it should not be.
Mr. Tiahrt. Should not be?
Mr. Fisher. They should have contact with a ground control
position.
Mr. Tiahrt. When I see these baggage handlers driving
around these carts, they have earmuffs on. I do not think those
are radios. How do they keep in touch with the tower?
Mr. Fisher. They do not, sir. They have lanes and they have
agreements with the airport as to where they will go on the
runway, on the apron, on the tarmac.
Mr. Tiahrt. And it is the same with the passenger carriers
at some airports like Dulles? They have certain paths they are
supposed to follow?
Mr. Fisher. They are going to follow the yellow line, sir.
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. So I guess you could make the argument,
though, that there are some service incidents that would be
outside the control of an air traffic controller, just people
are going to do things that are wrong.
Mr. Fisher. That is correct.
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. Well, the runway incursions is sort of
related to the surface incidents, are they not? I mean, they
could be interrelated, they could be--a surface incident could
be a runway incursion.
Mr. Fisher. Could be.
OPERATIONAL ERRORS
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. Well, I guess--I am not sure I can use
any of that data. Now, the operational data seems like it could
be directly involved.
Mr. Fisher. The runway incursion data you can use because
when we talk about the recent runway incursions or near misses
that we have had in the last couple of months, one example is
Seattle where an American Airlines aircraft flew over a TWA as
it crossed the runway.
Mr. Tiahrt. I think Chairman Carmody, I think you had that
in your report, did you not, that you submitted? Yes?
Mr. Fisher. And an additional recent one in Fort Lauderdale
where an air carrier passed over the top of another one in
landing.
Mr. Tiahrt. I think that that would be in the operation
errors category. I think your chart--I was reading through your
report here, your testimony that you submitted today for the
record and there are four categories in here, there is really
nothing about delays, but there are four categories in here,
one of them is operational deviation, which seemed like it
would be a good category to measure, but it is not on your
chart, but maybe that is related to operation errors, which is
also footnoted in your report.
Mr. Fisher. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Tiahrt. The operational error would be results less
than applicable separation, minima between two or more aircraft
or between aircraft and terrain or obstacles and instructions.
In other words, the planes are too close together.
Mr. Fisher. Correct.
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. And then the second portion of
operational error would be aircraft lands or departs on a
runway closed to aircraft operations after receiving air
traffic authorization.
Mr. Fisher. That would be landing on a closed runway.
Mr. Tiahrt. Does that happen a lot? I remember recently we
had a plane try to take off on a closed runway and hit a piece
of construction equipment. When a runway is closed, does that
mean it is under construction or is it just not currently being
used?
Mr. Fisher. Both of those are correct, sir. The airport
authority who controls the airport will shut the runway down
for maintenance or it might be closed for some construction,
replacing of lights, and they close them for certain periods of
time during the day, normally non-busy air traffic periods. So
the controllers know that the runway is closed.
Mr. Tiahrt. So some pilot comes in, he goes to the wrong
runway basically?
Mr. Fisher. That could happen, but our controllers most
assuredly do not want that to happen and ensure that does not
happen.
Mr. Tiahrt. So it could be pilot problems as well as air
traffic control problems.
Mr. Fisher. It could be.
SUPERVISOR RATIO
Mr. Tiahrt. Okay. Well, I do not know that I can relate
that data to the number of air traffic controllers and
supervisors, but I think the point is probably made that it
would be nice to have somebody overseeing it, but I just cannot
attribute any of the data directly to this ratio. Is there
something I am overlooking?
Mr. Fisher. Well, if I get back to Ms. Garvey and what she
indicated, that she cannot see a one-to-one correlation, I am
not saying that it is a one-to-one correlation. I am just
saying that oversight is a major part of the problem?
OPERATIONAL ERRORS
Mr. Tiahrt. I see.
Mr. Fisher. And if we are going to be part of the problem,
FMA wants to be part of the solution.
Mr. Tiahrt. Well, in your argument, being part of the
problem, you said that--in, again, your report, using the
number of operational errors in fiscal year 2000 as a basis,
the total cost of all operational errors was $14.2 million. But
I am not sure where the $14.2 million came from.
There is a chart that talks about air traffic costs
associated with operational errors and you have level 12 down
to level 5 and then an average cost and then a number of
operational errors and then a cost by level. How did you
establish the cost by level in your report on page 8?
Mr. Fisher. That was a piece that the FAA did and that was
sent out to the regional people. It is a chart that they came
up with.
Mr. Tiahrt. This is not replacing damaged property, this is
not a workman's compensation OWCP claim where they have an
operational error and they throw their back out so they have to
be off time. I am just not sure where these costs are coming
from. What is an operational error cost? How is it derived?
Mr. Fisher. The time spent, okay? With either people off,
not working.
Mr. Tiahrt. Investigation?
Mr. Fisher. Yes. Investigation, Training, and all of those
sorts of things. OWCP comes in when a traumatic injury is
claimed and the people involved would claim up to 45 days. That
is the additional difference between the $14 and $16 million.
Mr. Tiahrt. I am sorry to strain your voice, but what
happens when there is an operational error? What happens to the
operator? Is there a review process? Does he have to fill out
some paperwork? Is there some kind of something that is
documented that you can say, well, this was a $2 million error,
this is a $1 million error? What is the difference between--I
am sure they do not all cost the same. What is the process?
Mr. Fisher. No, they do not. The process for an operational
error is that the person will be taken off the position and it
will be investigated. If training is going to be required, and
in today's environment, if it is going to be for something
other than a technical violation, the supervisor of that
individual will get together with the individual, make up
tests, conduct training, et cetera, go through a process
whereby that person would be given a skill check or what have
you and then be reinstated to work traffic again.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Pastor.
environmental streamlining
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to
the streamlining. Last week, we had the Federal Highway
Administrator and TEA-21 authorized some pilot projects in
which they would try to streamline the process, not to do away
with the NEPA requirements, not to mitigate or not to lessen
them, but how is it that federal agencies can work together so
the process can move faster. And the authorization was given
two years ago and two years ago two pilot projects were funded.
We were told at the hearing that there is about 40 statutes
that deal with the environmental issue and anywhere from 12 to
15 federal agencies that one time or the other can get
involved. And they found it, I think, fairly difficult in terms
of getting the federal agencies just to cooperate with each
other in terms of developing a process that would lessen the
amount of time. My question is have you had that type of
authorization at least where you can have some pilot projects
so you can streamline the process and, if not, is that
something that they would want to consider?
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, first of all, we have been in
close contact with the Federal Highway Administration learning
from their experience because I know that was two years ago.
The report that we are submitting to Congress will include
administrative steps we can take as well as whether or not we
need any regulatory or legislative changes that we would
recommend. A couple of points. There are the 40 kind of
agencies that Federal Highway----
Mr. Pastor. Statutes.
Ms. Garvey. Statutes, rather, that Federal Highways has
talked about. We think there may be some duplication. We have
talked with Federal Highway about including, where there is
duplication eliminating that and actually including that in our
report to Congress. So that is certainly one place that we are
looking at. Right now, I do not know that I can say we actually
need authorization to do pilot programs, but I would like to
wait to see what the final report to Congress in April would
be.
There are still a number of issues around the early
planning stages where it is very important to get all the
federal agencies in early, perhaps sign a memorandum of
understanding. That is being considered. The secretary himself
has said that he would be willing to intervene wherever it is
necessary at the highest levels to get his colleagues at the
cabinet level to look at this in a coordinated and concerted
way. Just to go back to the example in Seattle, when talking to
the airport director there, it is not that she does not want to
deal with the issue. What she is asking for is can I know what
the issue is early enough so I can deal with it early in the
process rather than at the tail end of the process. I think the
Secretary can play a key role in that.
Mr. Pastor. But what happens in some cases, one federal
agency comes when you are three-fourths of the way down.
Ms. Garvey. Right.
inspector staffing
Mr. Pastor. And that causes you then to go back to try to
work the process again and then time becomes a factor and you
begin to overrun the project, the cost goes up and then people
start saying, well, you know, is it worth doing.
So I believe that streamlining is something we as federal
agencies should strive for and it is just a matter of what is
the best way of getting it done because pouring concrete for
the highways and the airports is very important to minimize
some of this delay problem, at least in the long run.
The second question I had, the second question dealt with
the inspectors who are requesting more staff. Now, have you
looked at the budget and is there room for that? Or are you
anticipating more staff for inspectors?
Ms. Garvey. Two quick answers, if I could, Congressman. One
is the supplemental budget that Congress passed last summer is
very helpful. We are able to hire some additional people
because of the supplemental. We put some additional funding for
this staffing into the budget that will be talked about in more
detail, I know, when the President releases that, so we will
look for your support during those discussions as well. That
will allow us to do some additional hiring.
Mr. Pastor. Because getting on a plane every weekend and
every Monday, it is very important to have that safety.
Ms. Garvey. That is right. I understand.
Mr. Pastor. It is a personal concern. I want to make sure
that whether they are outsourced or not, that we have the
inspectors because it is for my own safety.
Ms. Garvey. I agree.
controller-in-charge program
Mr. Pastor. And the third question is when I went back to
the office during one of the breaks, I received an e-mail and
there were three basic questions or three facts. Fact number
one is that the CICs, is it not true they are required to be
fully certified on all operational positions, whereas
supervisors have no such requirement?
Ms. Garvey. Well, it is true that they have to be fully
certified. I am not sure about the supervisors. It is true that
the CICs do have to be fully certified and if we were not clear
on that, we should be.
Mr. Pastor. So they are certified.
Ms. Garvey. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Pastor. So they have the training and all the----
Ms. Garvey. Yes.
Mr. Pastor. Well, at least the training that a supervisor
would have. Now, who determines the number of CICs at an FAA
facility? Is it not someone from management that would make
that determination?
Ms. Garvey. It is, Congressman. And, again, we are trying
to give our managers as much flexibility to make those
determinations as possible. It is the managers. It is the
manager's ultimate call.
Mr. Pastor. So it is the manager who decides how many CICs
are going to be working and learning how to become supervisors,
so basically it is the manager who makes that determination.
Ms. Garvey. That is correct, Congressman.
CIC RELATIONSHIP TO OPERATIONAL ERRORS
Mr. Pastor. It is not coming from you or from someone else
outside of that.
Ms. Garvey. That is correct.
Mr. Pastor. And the third fact that I got is just basically
is it true that 92 percent of the time when an operational
error occurs a supervisor is in charge?
Ms. Garvey. I have seen that number, Congressman. And, you
know, again, I want to underscore that I have great respect for
the supervisors, too. I think it gets to the point and it may
be a point that Congressman Tiahrt was making, too, it is
difficult to come to a solid conclusion that the reason for an
operational error, the reason for a runway incursion, is
related to the number of supervisors. I think you have to look
at it much more carefully. Obviously an issue, obviously
something you want to consider, and you do not want to reduce
supervisors in those places where you have real problems.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sweeney.
SAFETY OVERSIGHT
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have had a couple
of weeks of testimony, we have actually had a couple of years
of testimony. We know we have competition problems, we know we
have customer service and geographic service problems. The
safety record always seemed to be the thing we could fall back
on and say, well, something is working. And today, we look at
Mr. Fisher's charts and listen to some of the other testimony
and there are some pretty disconcerting pictures being drawn
here and there is chaos out there.
There are delays in all major acquisitions and programs at
the FAA, or substantial numbers of them. The cost accounting
system is four years behind, which I think beyond safety ought
to be next high priority. There are too many planes trying to
get into too few spots. Everyone believes the system is either
broken or just not working well.
And God forbid the next time we have a safety problem or
incursion and people are going to look back at the testimony
that we have accumulated here, they are going to hold us
accountable and they are going to hold each of you accountable
and others.
And I guess I would ask that somebody tell me at the end of
the day, the controllers do not go home each day just simply
happy that they have gotten through another day without a major
catastrophe. And whether it is oversight or procedural problems
or inspection ratios, we better get our act together pretty
quickly.
Mr. Kerner, under questioning from the chairman, you spoke
of a specific example of a case in which there was a
mitigation, a fine, and the adjudication process and my simple
question is why would not the inspector simply ground that
plane?
Mr. Kerner. Congressman, there were efforts to try to bring
the non-conformance to the carrier and once it was determined
that it would take additional effort to do it, to my
understanding all efforts were taken and their compliance was
obtained.
Mr. Sweeney. What is the process? I mean, if you see
something--if you are out there and you see something like that
and you said to the chairman that you thought that was a very
serious safety issue.
Mr. Kerner. It was a serious safety non-conformance and
every effort to bring the carrier and the aircraft in
compliance was taken. There are vehicles that we have.
Mr. Sweeney. Was it brought within compliance?
Mr. Kerner. Yes, it was.
Mr. Sweeney. Okay. I misunderstood that. I assumed that----
Mr. Kerner. Compliance was obtained, it was just slow to
get it into compliance.
REGULATION AND CERTIFICATION STAFFING
Mr. Sweeney. Mr. Pastor just touched on it a little bit,
Mr. DeBerry, and you say in your testimony that you recognize
Congress has appropriated the funds to meet the FAA's requests
for the Flight Standard Division and then you outline some
pretty serious problems that exist out there.
Actually, I am going to as Administrator Garvey. Develop me
some perspective here. What priorities are supplanting this?
Where is the money going?
Ms. Garvey. Well, fortunately, because of the supplemental
and because of the budget request for next fiscal year, I think
we are going to be able to meet those. I think there is always
a concern from the inspectors about the need to hire more. We
try to balance hiring new inspectors with hiring new
controllers and other priorities that affect the safety of the
system.
Mr. Sweeney. Are we at the ten-to-one ratio?
Ms. Garvey. Not at all. Not even close to that, to be
honest with you. We are moving slowly on that.
Mr. Sweeney. Is there sufficient funding or was there
sufficient funding in last year's appropriation piece to hire
those?
Ms. Garvey. With the supplemental, we got the sufficient
funding.
Mr. Sweeney. So where did the money go?
Ms. Garvey. With the supplemental, no, we are hiring them.
I am sorry. We are hiring.
Mr. Sweeney. But are we at ten-to-one? You had earlier said
that a ten-to-one ratio was the attainable goal.
Ms. Garvey. That was the long-term goal that we have. To go
to a ten-to-one supervisory ratio. Maybe I misunderstood your
question. I thought it was about what did we think was a
sensible ratio and I think we can live with and we feel that
ten-to-one is the right one in many facilities. I will not say
in all facilities. And then that is separate from hiring the
inspectors, which thanks to the supplemental budget and to, I
believe, this year's President's Budget, again, with a lot of
help from Congress, we will be able to hire the numbers that
the inspectors are talking about.
AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVES
Mr. Sweeney. I have two quick questions. One is again to
you about Mr. Kerner's testimony in which he said that the FAA
is ignoring its own internal policy handbook by switching the
oversight responsibilities of repair stations from Flight
Standards District Offices to CMOs, certificate management
offices, which are not in geographically close locations to do
that. Can you address that concern and tell me what the
rationale is in the policy?
Ms. Garvey. Yes, I can, Congressman. Again, this is an
issue that we talked to Mr. Fanfalone about. For us, from the
FAA management perspective, one of the challenges and one of
the ways that we think the oversight should be addressed is to
bring our oversight as close as we can to the carrier so we
have made some changes based on that operational need, if you
will. The union, Mr. Fanfalone, and some of the inspectors have
raised some concerns that they have about how it affects the
workplace, and how it affects the workforce. They are issues we
are looking at and working with. It is a fairly new issue at
least in terms of my attention to it, but I know Mr. McSweeny
is also looking at it as well. Again, trying to balance out the
right kind of issues for the workplace but then also trying to
deal with the operational need to have the oversight as close
as we can. But I look forward to also talking to the inspectors
about that.
Mr. Sweeney. Mr. Kerner, do you want to comment on that at
all?
Mr. Kerner. Congressman, basically my position is it is
difficult for personnel in a CMO or an air carrier office that
manages a major air carrier to be able to satisfy the daily
needs and stay on top of the issues at a repair station that is
located halfway across the country.
Mr. Sweeney. So in your opinion, it does present a risk.
Mr. Kerner. It does present a risk and it is hard to stay
on top of issues.
emory freight flight 17 crash
Mr. Sweeney. I just have one final--it is really not a
question, it is a request to Chairwoman Carmody. On February
16, 2000, Emory Freight Flight 17 from Rancho Cordova,
California crashed while attempting emergency return to the
airport. I guess it has been established that the problem was
cargo had shifted and it has caused similar kinds of problems.
The family of the captain of that plane is from my district
and, as you can imagine, that loss has been greatly felt and
they are quite distraught and have talked to me repeatedly.
More than nine months after the accident, the NTSB
scheduled a hearing on the accident and canceled the hearing,
so what I would like from you by next week's end, by the end of
this month, is if you could provide me a detailed account of
the Emory Flight 17 accident so that I could at least
correspond some knowledge to my constituents.
Ms. Carmody. Thank you. I am glad to do that now, I have
some information. First of all, there are strong indications
that have recently come to the attention of our team that it
was not a loading accident, it looks more like a maintenance
issue.
Mr. Sweeney. How long ago did you establish that? Because
we have been asking for quite some time.
Ms. Carmody. It has been quite recently. I just had a
meeting on it in my office. And the second issue is that we
have decided to have a hearing. The date is as yet
undetermined, but probably June, late June or July and we will
get you that date as soon as we establish it.
Mr. Sweeney. I would appreciate next time those kinds of
things occur that there be--because we have been in regular
contact with your office on this.
Ms. Carmody. Well, I am sorry to hear that. It was just
yesterday morning that I had a meeting and we discussed this
very issue and decided to go forward with the hearing.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
ground radar at reagan national
Mr. Rogers. All right. Thank you, Mr. Sweeney. We are going
to wrap this up. We have exhausted the subject. We have
exhausted the panel and the audience, I think. But let me ask a
couple of questions for other members before we close down, for
Chairman Wolf, who had to leave for another hearing from our
hearing.
He wanted me to ask you, Administrator, about the
Washington Post story yesterday about the ground radar at
Reagan National that is apparently inoperative, apparently
unable to track planes on the ground. Is that correct?
Ms. Garvey. That is correct. And the article, I think,
really accurately described the issue. A design issue, a
problem that no one had anticipated. Very unusual situation. We
have this radar in lots of places. We are looking at shortening
the schedule to get it replaced. We have some real siting
challenges at National and we also have some environmental
issues with the National Capital Planning Commission, but we
have a call in to them to see if we can resolve some of those
very quickly.
Mr. Rogers. But contrary to the Post article, you do not
have a problem with money to fix it.
Ms. Garvey. Well, that was pointed out yesterday and that
is absolutely right. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. In fact, we put in $4 million in the current
fiscal year to fix that particular problem.
Ms. Garvey. And thank you very much.
Mr. Rogers. It is available for three years, right or
wrong.
Ms. Garvey. That is correct. Thank you.
capital city airport, lansing, michigan
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much. Now, for Mike Rogers from
Michigan, he wants to know why you are considering shutting
down the midnight shift of the ATC tower at the Capital City
Airport in Lansing, Michigan.
Ms. Garvey. I do not know the answer to that. Congressman
Rogers did stop me just before the afternoon session began and
we are going to look at that. We will get back to him and let
you know as well, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. He points out that if it is closed that the
people flying in and out between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. would be
without service and that United Parcel Service (UPS) operates a
gateway at the Capital City Airport and employs more than 100
people and a lot of their planes would be flying in and out of
that airport during those proposed closing hours. That would be
a problem, would it not?
Ms. Garvey. It certainly sounds that way and we will look
into it.
Mr. Rogers. He has been hounding me to hound you, so I have
hounded you.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you.
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Mr. Rogers. Anyone else before we close?
Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. No, thank you.
Closing Remarks
Mr. Rogers. I thank you for spending a long day with us. I
apologize for making two sessions out of this, but you are
doing such important work it required that we take some time.
You know what the problems are, much, much more than we do,
but we are charged with the public responsibility to oversee
the funding for FAA and the NTSB and many of the aspects of
this business of traveling. And we are hearing complaints from
our constituents out there in very, very loud and vociferous
ways and that means we have to pass this along. This is, after
all, a republic and we are republishing what we are hearing out
there.
So we are expecting that we get answers and solutions. The
funding that we will be passing through this subcommittee this
year will, I assure you, go to those who are a part of the
solution; they will not go to those who are a part of the
problem and we are trying to sift through now and see who is on
which side.
We expect the FAA to be the great professional organization
that it is and was designed to be. You are carrying heavier
responsibilities than you ever have, the number of people
flying continues to increase by the millions. That is not going
to let up. You face some very short-term problems with the
anticipated work shortages that are apparently in place or
coming up this summer and the overwhelming numbers of new
travelers this summer during the holiday season.
So I expect the noises will get louder that we hear and so
we are going to have to ask you to redouble your efforts and be
sure that the directives of this Administrator and staff go to
the very ends of the earth, go to the very bottom of the
organization and we expect that and we are going to keep track
of that. And, believe me, we will find ways to know who is the
problem. And if the Administrator does not have the authority
to effect discipline there, believe me, we do and we will
exercise that authority.
We expect results. We know we have professional people here
and we know we have some experienced people that know what they
are doing. There are a few, I think, though, that are in the
way. And we want to move them out of the way.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. The hearing is adjourned.
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Thursday, May 3, 2001.
AIRLINE DELAYS AND AVIATION SYSTEM CAPACITY
WITNESSES
JANE F. GARVEY, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
KENNETH M. MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
EDWARD A. MERLIS, SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION
CHARLES BARCLAY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF AIRPORT EXECUTIVES
CAPTAIN DUANE E. WOERTH, PRESIDENT, AIR LINE PILOTSASSOCIATION
JOHN S. CARR, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERSASSOCIATION
Opening Remarks
Mr. Rogers. Good afternoon to all of you. This afternoon we
have before us once again the infamous gang of six, the
aviation professionals who had the misfortune of appearing
before this Subcommittee on March 15th, to address the airline-
delay problem. During that hearing I asked each of them to
commit to five concrete and measurable things they would
personally do to help address the airline-delay problem.
Frankly, over the past couple of years there have been a lot of
hearings, a lot of public statements about the delay problem,
but there has been more finger pointing than real progress. It
makes one think that this is a dysfunctional family.
Well, I say we have had enough finger pointing and enough
bland statements. So during our March 15th hearing we secured
specific commitments from the government and from elements of
the industry. We put those commitments on a big board, which
you see displayed behind us here on the desk. You will notice
there are blanks on this list of commitments under the areas
marked ``progress.'' And that is what we are here to address
today, what specific progress has been made by each of you over
the past seven weeks on the five commitments you made to us at
that time.
Consider this your first grading period. We want to give
each of you a report card today on your progress. And I intend
to have you up here again and perhaps again and again because
we will continue working to resolve this problem until we have
firm, documented progress from each of you.
Consider this like the ``Survivor'' television show. You
are each on an island with me, and I am putting you through
your paces. We are holding your feet to the fire, and as you
meet your commitments, you will get off the island. And I know
none of you want to be the last survivor here with me because I
am not going away. This Subcommittee is not going away.
The airline-delay problem is one of most serious problems
facing our nation today, affecting millions of our people each
day. One in every four commercial-airline flights was delayed
last year, and the average delay has now increased to almost 50
minutes. Flight cancellations have increased sevenfold in the
past five years, and the FAA has now documented that airlines
regularly schedule more flights during rush hours at busy
airports than can possibly take off. They are planning on
delays and cancellations as part of their ``business model.''
With aircraft over 70 percent full, it is impossible to rebook
those passengers on the next flight. The overreliance on moving
thousands of passengers during peak hours through a small
number of major hub airports has created a system which is not
serving the American public well.
We have boiled a lot of good ideas down to the list behind
me, and we will focus on that list today. But all of you need
to know and carry the message back to your respective
industries or organizations that we are deadly serious that we
will have concrete actions, concrete solutions to this problem
or there will be consequences. Not vague promises, but we want
hard and fast commitments and solutions, and the evaluation
begins today.
So I appreciate the fact that you have returned today. We
await your progress reports. We will enter your written
statement in the record without objection, but first let me
recognize my colleague, Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to see all of
you again, and I look forward to hearing from you.
commitments to solve the delay problem
Mr. Rogers. The Secretary testified two days ago. We have
extracted five promises out of the Secretary, and you will see
that the board has been modified to include the Secretary of
Transportation.
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FAA Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. We will go according to the chart behind me in
that order, and you are recognized, Ms. Garvey, Administrator
for the FAA.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Sabo,
members of the committee. I am very pleased to be here this
afternoon.
choke points
In front of you is a package which outlines the commitments
that I made at our last hearing, the milestones we have set,
the progress we have made, and the benefits that have accrued.
At a recent budget hearing, I reported to you that we were
successful in reaching a standard definition of delays, so I
would like to turn to the five remaining items, and I will
begin with the choke points. Together with the airlines, we
have identified 21 initiatives to relieve choke points. Those
are areas in the system that generate significant constraints.
The most critical area, as you may remember, is that
triangle from Chicago to Boston and Washington. The 21
initiatives focus on changes to gain greater efficiency in the
airspace, and we do this by changing air-traffic procedures, by
establishing new sectors, and by creating new routes.
We have completed work on 11 of the initiatives. Those
specifically address the congested airspace in and around the
New York-New Jersey area. As a result, we can say that the
westbound and northbound departures out of the New York area
are experiencing fewer delays. And just this week we opened
three new sectors in the Cleveland Center, which is really the
busiest center in the country. We are currently testing some
new routes between 300 city pairs, which will allow aircraft
between these points to fly at lower altitudes, and we believe
by separating the traffic we can maintain greater efficiency.
Additional initiatives, as you will see from the chart,
will be completed by December. Five are longer in their
implementation phase, and some might even involve international
agreements, but our time frame is to complete all of these by
July 2002.
capacity benchmarks
On the second issue, capacity benchmark, we issued our
Capacity Benchmark Report on April 25th. We established both an
optimum and a reduced number of hourly takeoffs and landings
that can be safely accommodated at the top 31 airports. The two
numbers, we believe, describe a realistic expectation of
performance for each airport. The report confirms what you as
frequent fliers know intuitively, and that is that there are a
handful of airports where demand is either at capacity or
exceeds capacity and where in adverse conditions the resulting
delays have impacts throughout the system.
The report shows that there are eight airports that have
high delays and that have a disproportionate effect on the
National Airspace System. Each airport presents a unique set of
challenges, and each airport requires a specific set of
solutions. We think the report is a good starting point.
Our emphasis, which includes the government, airlines, and
the airports, is to quickly shift to solutions. We have taken a
first cut at potential solutions for each of these eight
airports. The actions include new technology. It includes air
traffic control procedural changes, in some instances new
runways, and a review of airline scheduling.
What you will see in the charts before you are those items
for which the FAA has direct responsibility. We recognize that
our actions alone will not be sufficient to deal with the
projected demands at these airports, so in the action plans
that are included in the report we have included
recommendations for airports and airlines. We will certainly
work very closely with them to implement the right set of
exclusions.
free flight phase 1 and 2
With Free Flight there are essentially five automation
tools, five software programs, to be used by the controllers.
We are glad to say that the program is on track. We have had
enough experience to date to begin to measure the benefits. And
incidentally, the benefits that we are seeing are those
benefits that the airlines tell us about themselves. One tool,
for example, is saving airlines $1.5 million per month in
Indianapolis and Memphis. Another tool is able to increase
arrival rates at Dallas/Fort Worth by about five percent.
Our challenge now is really to maintain the momentum and to
have it carry on into Free Flight Phase 2.
Some of the National Airspace Evolution Plan initiatives
that I have spoken about are really short term in nature, and
the choke points are a good example of that. But we have also
recognized that we need a 10-year view of where we are headed,
and that is really where the National Airspace Evolution Plan
comes in. It lays out a 10-year commitment for the FAA for the
airlines and for the airports. It includes runways, and it
includes technologies and procedural improvements.
Simply put, this plan sets forth the blueprint to move us
toward satellite navigation and to move us as an industry, with
the supporting procedural changes and airspace redesign. We are
working very closely with industry and airports, and we intend
to issue the final plan in June. We have the draft up on the
Web. We are hearing from airlines daily, and their comments are
very helpful.
environmental streamlining
The next item, streamlining approval for airport capacity
project. As you know, AIR-21 required the FAA to report
primarily on the environmental-review process and streamlining
efforts as well. Our report is essentially complete. I am very
pleased to say that OMB signed off on that earlier this week,
and we expect to get it to Congress very shortly. I hope within
the next day.
We have already undertaken some steps at the FAA, such as
establishing dedicated environmental-review teams for the major
runway projects. Four such teams are now in place. We are also
working to increase staff for environmental review and working
with our airport sponsors on reimbursable agreements to
dedicate staff to major runway projects. There are some
encouraging developments. We have about 18 new runways that are
proposed between now and 2010. Nine of those projects have
completed the environmental-review process. We will work very
closely with the Inspector General to keep a careful eye on all
of those projects.
Mr. Chairman, we know of your commitment and this
committee's commitment to finding solutions. We also recognize
that it will take the efforts of each of the groups represented
here this afternoon. I will simply end by saying that you have
my personal commitment and deep resolve to do our part.
Thank you very much. That concludes my testimony. I would
be happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Jane Garvey follows:]
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Inspector General Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Ms. Garvey. We are analyzing the
statement. Mr. Mead, the Inspector General.
Mr. Mead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Consistent with our
oversight role, I would like to provide an update on each of
our commitments. We have submitted a fairly lengthy statement
for the record. I would just like to touch on the highlights,
if that is permissible.
definition of flight delays
Mr. Rogers. That is fine.
Mr. Mead. I am pleased to report that progress has been
made on most of the DOT and FAA action items that we committed
to monitoring since the March hearing. The most progress has
occurred on developing a standard DOT definition of flight
delays, of which you are already aware, and establishing a
system for tracking the causes of flight delays and
cancellations. That system has been established, Mr. Chairman.
Now it must be implemented, and there is an important
distinction between those two.
other delay initiatives
Developing capacity benchmarks for the 31 major airports,
which show the number of flight operations that these airports
can accommodate in both good and poor weather; now they need to
be used. Developing the national operational evolution plan,
which is really a set of FAA initiatives and milestones for
expanding capacity in the air traffic control system; I have
personally been briefed on this plan, and I think it is
impressive. Now it needs to be agreed to, polished, refined
with the airlines and then implemented. Progress is also being
made on the remaining 10, so-called ``choke-point items,''
including the establishment of several new, air traffic control
sectors. I do want to say, though, that even with the progress
to date, significant work remains in a number of areas. And on
each of the items that have been committed to by FAA and the
airlines the key is going to lie in their implementation.
delay tracking
And I would like to refer now, if I might, to some graphics
that I believe you have in front of you. If you look at the
Figures 1 through 3 there, you can see that delays this year
through March are closely tracking those of last year, which
was a record year for delays. FAA's own tracking of delays, of
delays for which the air traffic control system is responsible,
would show that for the month of March there were fewer delays,
but, in fact, when you consider delays for all reasons,
including maintenance delays by the airlines and so forth, you
will see that they are tracking so far just where we were last
year.
[The graphics follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mead. Unfortunately, few of the items that DOT and FAA
have committed to are likely to provide material relief this
summer, but they are a real good starting in providing relief
over the next several years. I do think that the initiative of
FAA and the airlines to work cooperatively in sharing
information this summer is going to provide system relief. I
also think the opening up of several new air sectors will
provide some relief. But the actions most likely to materially
reduce delays this summer are going to be voluntary ones taken
by airlines to revamp their schedules at their hubs and efforts
to disperse traffic away from these congested areas to other
airports where it is economically feasible to do so.
airline voluntary actions to reduce congestion
I would like to refer now to the second of my graphics.
Here I would like to refer to actions taken both by American
Airlines and Delta Airlines. American reduced the size of peak
operations at Dallas-Fort Worth. That is on the second page
there, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee.
The red peaks are last year's schedule, and the yellow
peaks are this year's schedule. The result is, as shown in
Figure 5, that there are only a few times in a day when total
arrivals now exceed the capacity rate that is reflected in
FAA's capacity benchmarks, and the capacity rate is the blue
line.
And you can see a similar effect in Figures 6 and 7 for
Delta Airlines' actions in Atlanta. Delta increased the number
of what are known as arrival and departure banks, and that
reduced the operating peaks for most of the day below the blue
capacity line. I think those are good actions, and we are
encouraged by the efforts of these two airlines at those two
airports in the scheduling area. For airlines that have yet to
take action at their hub airports, now is the time to do so on
an independent and voluntary basis.
And, of course, in addition to these voluntary efforts,
there are other factors that are going to affect this summer.
They are including the resolution of the airline new labor
negotiations, severe weather, and the performance of the
economy, and the demand for business travel.
[The graphic follows:]
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flight delay public disclosure
Mr. Mead. I would like to move now, Mr. Chairman, to some
key remaining actions. One is to complete the remaining actions
on the 10 choke points. A second, and this is probably an area
where I am most disappointed, is the airlines ought to be
telling their customers, before they buy tickets and without
being asked, that the flight they are about to book is either
canceled or late 40 percent of the time or more. I think that
is only fair business practice that tells people right up front
what it is they are buying. Based on everything I have seen so
far, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe the airlines will do this
voluntarily.
schedule comparison
Another action item: DOT needs to start right away to
compare schedules between 2000 and 2001 at the airlines' hub
airports so that they can evaluate the effect of voluntary
actions on flight delays on a regular basis. We can do that in
the Inspector General's office for a couple of months, but I
think, as a matter of routine, the Department ought to pick up
on that and do it as a regular practice.
runway construction
We have completed a baseline of the 14 currently proposed
runway projects, including their completion date, their
estimated cost, and the current status. Of the eight most-
congested airports only one has completed a runway in the last
10 years--that is Philadelphia in 1999--and only two more of
the eight, Boston and Atlanta, plan runways over the next seven
years. That tends to put where the new runway construction is
going to be in context.
peak demands
We think in this area, too, as Ms. Garvey alluded, that
after we get this baseline established, we would like to pass
it off to FAA and have them regularly maintain it as part of
their own operation of the airport grants program. We have not
completed our study of administrative- and market-based options
for managing excess demand at congested airports. That needs a
lot of careful review and analysis. We have identified them,
but it is going to take some time to analyze them. We expect to
be done with that towards the end of the summer. I do not think
that you would be able to put these things in place in the next
month or two anyway. They are things like new lotteries, peak-
hour-congestion pricing. That is something that is going to
take some time.
Conclusion
I wanted to close, Mr. Chairman, with a comment about an
item that is not on our list to monitor, but I think it is a
strong plus. You will recall when we testified in March, we
pointed out that when people think about delays and
cancellations, they usually think about inconvenience, the cost
to them of their lost time, and so forth. But, there were
safety issues. You will recall, I mentioned, there were runway
incursions and there were operational errors. The operational
errors, of course, usually occur in the sky--there are planes
coming too close together--and in this past year we had a
record year for them. We issued a report containing a number of
recommendations. I think FAA and the controllers in the last
month have really moved out to take some corrective action in
that area.
A likely result is going to be, in the near term, a more
accurate reporting of operational errors, so the numbers are
going to go up. I think it is incumbent on all of us to
recognize that for what it is. It is not necessarily an actual
increase in the operational errors as much as it is a
reflection of a more accurate system of reporting and analyzing
the severity of the operational error in relationship to those
that are less severe. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Ken Mead follows:]
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Air Transport Association (ATA) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Merlis.
Mr. Merlis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to report
on each of the steps that I committed to at the subcommittee's
March 15th hearing.
herndon command center
First, we committed to better utilizing the products of the
Herndon Command Center conference calls to address the daily
schedule so that we can identify places where delays may be
occurring and take steps to reduce the inconvenience to our
customers. The Spring 2001 delay-mitigation program began on
April 1st. So far approximately 3,100 airline and FAA employees
have been through a joint airline-FAA training process in order
to better implement that program.
Each morning, the air carriers conduct an industry-only,
weather-briefing conference call and then use the product of
that in the every-two-hour conference call that takes place
with the FAA. I think it is fair to say, based on the fact that
so far, from preliminary data for the month of April being
better than it was April of last year, these efforts have
proven fruitful.
delay reporting advisory committee
Secondly, we said that, subject to approval by DOT, we
would put in place the recommendations of the DOT Delay
Reporting Advisory Committee so that we have this common system
by which we can inform customers of the reasons for delay and
address delays.
Four ATA-member carriers--American, Delta, Southwest, and
United--are participating in a pilot program, collecting the
data and submitting it to DOT so that DOT will know how to
fashion the appropriate rule, after which all ATA members will
comply with whatever that rule is.
flight information display system
Thirdly, we said we would pursue the transfer of delay data
from the FAA's data base into the carriers' systems used to
inform customers. All of our member carriers have launched
programs to improve the quality of the delay information that
is provided to customers. Carriers have installed, and are
actively pursuing, a variety of new systems to be installed at
various locations. For example, American Airlines has already
deployed new, gate-information-display systems at Chicago,
Phoenix, Philadelphia, Columbus, Memphis, DFW Terminal 2, Los
Angeles Terminal 4, and Salt Lake City, and ultimately plans to
install these screens, which will have that accurate
information, at 40 of the most delay-plagued airports.
American is also upgrading the current flight-information-
display systems at its eight busiest airports and will replace
the older systems in 267 airports. Delta has installed plasma-
screen, gate-information-display systems at four airports and
will complete seven of them by Labor Day. The airports that
they have chosen to install first are those which have the most
frequent flight delays.
Northwest has installed this new technology at
approximately 30 percent of the gates that it serves, and by
the end of the year they anticipate having it at about 50
percent of their gates. And in the case of Southwest Airlines,
which does not have the same technological base as those other
carriers I mentioned, they embarked upon a similar kind of
program, and they anticipate that this will be completed within
18 months.
The undertaking actually turns out to be more complex than
just transferring the FAA's data. The FAA's data does not
include the estimated time of arrival at subsequent airports,
and that is what needs to be put in these programs, and we are
doing that.
One other point related to that is that during the course
of this month we anticipate that FAA's airport-specific data
will be put up in the gate rooms where CNN Airport Network is
offered. That is approximately 1,600 gates at 30 of our
nation's busiest airports. So to the extent that is improvement
in the quality of the information that is being provided to
customers, we are committed to doing that, too.
identify capacity expansion projects
My fourth item was to work with the airport community to
identify capacity-expansion projects that have the goal of
reducing delays and to work with the airport community to find
ways to fulfill those. We have asked each of our members to
work with the airports they serve to pursue the airport-
expansion projects identified in the testimony last month, and
we will continue to advocate these. As a trade association, we
have been called upon in a number of locations--Seattle and
Boston and San Francisco in the past month or so--and we have
been outspoken in our support for those efforts.
Similarly, we have joined forces with the airport community
in forming an advocacy organization, Runways: A National
Coalition, the goal of which is to streamline the federal-state
environmental process and to take steps to overcome public
opposition to increased runway capacity. There are 16
individual airports and airport systems with which we are
working on that program.
denied boarding compensation program
And lastly, we said that we would file a petition to update
the denied-boarding compensation program, which was implemented
by the Department of Transportation some 20-odd years ago. On
April 3rd, we did file such a petition requesting that the
Department of Transportation issue new rules which take into
effect what has transpired over the last 20-plus years.
I would be happy to answer any detailed questions that come
off the written statement, which was far more comprehensive
than my oral statement.
[The prepared statement of Edward Merlis follows:]
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Airport Executives (AAAE) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Barclay.
Mr. Barclay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can give you a
summary of my summary by the numbers. Number one is our
overriding, long-term effort, and we are very encouraged with
the reaction we are getting to that, and I will report to you
on the progress. Two, three, and four are all items that hold
out potential for near-term, real progress on delays and things
airports can do about delays, so we are providing this
committee with general-provision language on those three items
for your consideration to see if it would be appropriate, in
the committee's view, to include them in your bill that will be
out later this year. And five and six on our list are
accomplished, and we are in the implementation phase, and I
will report to you on those.
STREAMLINING RUNWAY CONSTRUCTION
The first one, advocate streamlining of the runway-
construction process. We have a comprehensive proposal that was
put together by the leading experts in the airport industry
that we have given the committee before. We are working with
four members of the Senate on specific legislation that will
include those provisions. We are also part of a runway
coalition that Ed just mentioned, together with airports and
airlines. In the effort there, we are very encouraged by the
fact that even the president at the American Society of
Newspaper Editors, in response to a question, when asked about
delays, said, we need more runways, and we need to build them
faster. So the government consciousness on this issue has,
frankly, arrived earlier than we thought it would.
Mr. Rogers. Well, that is his first commitment. We need
four more out of him now.
Mr. Barclay. If I could on this first point, Mr. Chairman,
a snapshot explanation of the problem our system faces, I
think, is painted in thinking about Dallas-Fort Worth. It has
seven runways to handle 31 million passengers. They are
building an eighth runway so they can handle more than that. In
comparison, in the 1990's we have added 200 million passengers
to the national system, but we have only built six runways at
all of the major airports combined. So you can see, in just a
rough measure, we are not building enough capacity to keep up
with the demand that is growing in the system.
So number one is in progress. We are working hard on it,
and we are encouraged by the reaction we are getting from
Congress. We will be working with the authorizing committees on
both sides of the Hill on those.
SUPPORT STAFF FOR RUNWAY PROJECTS
Second, to advocate the FAA's ability to provide support
staff in processing runway projects quicker, at FAA we are
providing the committee both with some specific staffing ideas
for your direct funding as well as a general provision that
would allow airports to pay for staffing when the FAA does not
have the staff resources available in order to speed up
projects. And as I mentioned at our last meetings, this is
patterned after the FDA process, where pharmaceutical companies
that want to speed up the approval of a new drug have the
option to pay the added cost that FDA incurs as a result of
their request to speed up. An example in the airport business
would be San Francisco and the FAA are in need of a marine
biologist for looking at the issues of a new runway that would
go out into the bay. That is the kind of thing the airport
could pay for if we make sure that FAA has the authority to do
so, and we think that is something that is worthy of the
committee's consideration.
PASSENGER FACILITY CHARGE CAP
Third, on the passenger-facility charge and lifting the
cap, we, of course, have long been advocates of that in a
general sense. It is the only case where we know of the federal
government is capping a local government's ability to charge
for resources being provided users. But rather than getting
into that longer debate, which we know is still sensitive with
our airline partners, what we are suggesting is a very narrow
provision that would allow the Secretary to waive the cap only
at the badly congested airports and only for critical runway
projects that are in the national interest, giving that limited
authority to the Secretary is, again, something that we think
could be considered in your bill, and we are providing language
on that.
REVENUE DIVERSION
The fourth point that we think is of immediate attention
for the committee or useful for your immediate attention is to
also include a directed interpretation to the FAA on off-
airport, environmental remediation. Today, if you are going to
spend money of an airport's, you have to do it, to make it
simplistic, you have to do it within the boundaries of the
airport, or you are guilty of what is called ``revenue
diversion.'' We have tried to include rules in the regulations
and laws so that airports do not take money off airports and go
use it for other, unrelated purposes.
That general rule. That general rule has gotten in the way
of, for example, San Francisco doing heavy remediation in other
places in San Francisco Bay that would far outweigh any
environmental damage done on the new runway, and by spending
that money off the airport, you allow an important capacity
project to go forward. So that is also language that we are
offering the committee and a suggestion that we think would
have near-term benefits.
CNN AIRPORT CHANNEL
Fifth, it has already been mentioned briefly by Ed, we have
gotten together. Our commitment was to get better information
to airport customers, and after looking at all of the options,
together with the FAA, the airlines, major airports, we all
came to the conclusion that the CNN Airport Channel is a single
network that is out there. It reaches over 400 million of the
675 million passengers. It is sited in gate areas in places
where it is designed to be seen by passengers, and largely
because of the efforts of Jane Garvey and FAA and CNN, that is
happening. It is, in fact, going to be announced later this
month.
FAA worked very hard to get the information CNN needed to
do that quickly. It will be an independent source of
information so that, for example, although the airline is going
to have the best information on your flight, it will have
information if all of the flights are being delayed out of
Boston for a weather reason. That kind of information is coming
from FAA as a general condition that is going on in the air
traffic control system, and passengers will have that
information to also arm them in their dealings with their own
flights.
And I just want to say on this that if we ever wind up
earning a gold star on this one, I would like to give it to
Jane Garvey because she is the one that made it happen so
quickly. It is an example of a broader point, that we have got
a lot of problems in this system, but we have got a damn, good
FAA Administrator. And this is an example of the kind of
efforts we have gotten out of her on other solvable problems
when airports have brought it to her. So this is one that we
are excited about, and you will be hearing more about this
later this month. As I say, it is in the implementation phase.
INFORMATION TO CUSTOMERS
And finally, we agreed, and if I can perfect the title of
this one, what, at least, I meant to say was that we have
become involved in coordination of the information on air
traffic control operations for airports. I did not mean to
imply that we would be involved in the coordination of air
traffic control operations.
Airports would not have a direct role in that, except for
the unusual circumstance where you were totally closing an
airport. But we can help to get better the information in real
time to airports that is coming from ATC, flow control, and the
FAA Center, and if airports have that, they will be better
armed to handle disruptions in the system.
We have already been out at Herndon. We have a private,
distance-learning, satellite network that goes to over a
hundred airports where we provide training on all different
kinds of topics for airports: fire fighting and aircraft
familiarization and snow removal and so on. In that grouping of
training we are already filming a training video on how to
utilize the FAA's information. We are then providing the FAA's
ATC information over that satellite system so that airport
operations people can get it right at their desktop computers.
And that is one, again, where we have gotten great help from
FAA, and we are in the process of--we have done the filming. We
are doing the editing. We are in the process of accomplishing
that item this month. Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to answer
any detailed questions.
[The prepared statement of Charles Barclay follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Well, thank you for a good report. Mr. Woerth.
Mr. Woerth. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate this opportunity to be here with you
today to discuss the steps ALPA has taken to accomplish the
five goals you asked each of us to set for ourselves which
would help alleviate the problems of delays and limited
capacity.
RTCA FREE FLIGHT STEERING COMMITTEE
The first item I presented at the March 15th hearing was to
continue ALPA's high-level participation on the RTCA free-
flight steering committee and to ensure that it is properly
focused in defining what the system really needs and that the
correct priorities are established. I am a member of that free-
flight steering committee, and I can assure you that even with
my other duties as president of ALPA, my attendance at these
committee meetings receives my highest priority. The committee
meets on a quarterly basis, and the next meeting will take
place on August 8th.
ALPA has been an active participant in RTCA for over 35
years, and our extensive involvement with this organization
will continue. Furthermore, we fully support the FAA's
operational, evolutionary plan that is in the final stages of
development and coordination with the industry. Through the
free-flight steering committee, we will work to ensure that the
implementation details and the schedules are and will continue
to be realistic and deliverable. This will be critical to the
success of airspace modernization.
IMPROVE NATCA LIAISON
The second item was to improve our liaison efforts to NATCA
and to ensure that we address issues involving delays,
cancellation, and capacity enhancements. I have designated
ALPA's first vice president, Captain Denny Dolan from Delta, to
head this effort, and their next meeting is scheduled for May
18th to identify issues we can jointly support and to develop a
work program.
AIRLINE DISPATCHERS FEDERATION
The third item from the March 15th hearing is to bring the
Airline Dispatchers Federation into the ALPA and NATCA liaison
process. This proposal was on the agenda from our May 8th
meeting, and I have already discussed it with John. This is
going to happen. We are already working on a local level, but
to formalize the process is going to be done this month.
The fourth item I mentioned was to work for standardized
and modernized flight and duty time-limitation rules.
Naturally, our first and primary concern regarding flight and
duty time is safety. ALPA and other industry safety advocates
have been seeking revisions to these inadequate regulations
since 1990, and there was a notice of proposed rulemaking in
1995 and much talk of a supplemental rule last year, but as of
today, no action.
The current state of affairs compounds the delay problem in
several ways. First, amazingly enough, there seems to be some
confusion over whether or not the current, 16-hour, maximum-
duty-day limit is really a limit or is it just a scheduling
goal for the airlines. The confusion and disputes between the
airlines and the flight crews on what is supposed to happen at
the 16-hour point has caused lots of delays, and an unequivocal
ruling must be made by the FAA immediately, or more delays and
cancellations are going to result until this dispute is
resolved.
Secondly, the current inadequate rule on pilot rest has led
to airline scheduling views known as ``scheduled reduced
rest.'' This rule leads to thousands of delays. Let me explain
how that happens.
Here is how scheduled reduced rest works. Airlines
frequently schedule a flights crew to work all day and arrive
at a destination, let's say, at 11 p.m., but they are the crew
that is supposed to take out the first flight in the morning at
7 a.m. That is just eight hours from landing to takeoff. If
everything works perfectly, you may get five hours of sleep in
a hotel, but that is legal. But the real world, of course, as
we know--that is why we are having this hearing--the real world
intervenes, and delays occur, and that 11 p.m. flight arrives
at midnight. So now the crew cannot legally take off at seven,
so we have got another delay. The 7 a.m. departure is delayed
until at least 8 o'clock in the morning, and if you start off
at 8 o'clock in the morning late--this happens every day all
over the country--then all of the flights all day long are
delayed.
I cannot tell you how important it would be to fix this
scheduled reduced rest. We have a rule that every airline has
to follow, not by union contract. They cannot do this any more.
We are going to solve a lot of delays, and, Mr. Chairman, we
have been trying to get this for a long time. If you can help
us break this logjam to get this flight time, duty time fixed,
you will probably do more than any other thing in the near time
to improve flight delays.
Building Industry Consensus
The final item was to affirm ALPA's commitment to
continuing the work of building industry consensus on programs
that will improve efficiency and increase capacity while
maintaining the highest level of safety. Now, we are doing this
through our involvement in a number of initiatives, the RTCA
process, which I have mentioned, the ATA's closely spaced,
parallel-runway steering committee, the FAA's Spring 2000 Plus
One Project, and numerous FAA and industry work groups on such
things as reduced separation in domestic airspace and land-and-
hold short operations, commonly referred to as ``LAHSO.'' Long
and Hold Short Operation
Mr. Chairman, the input of the airline pilot is critical to
the development of solutions to the problems facing the ATC
system. You can be sure that ALPA will continue to provide that
input and will remain committed to our motto of schedule with
safety, thank you. I will be happy to answer any questions you
may have, sir.
[The prepared statement of Captain Duane Woerth follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
National Air Traffic Controllers (NATCA) Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Mr. Carr.
Mr. Carr. Good afternoon, Chairman Rogers, Congressman
Sabo, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify on the proactive steps that the National
Air Traffic Controllers Association has taken to address the
delay situation.
Aviation Safety
I am pleased to report that we have made significant
progress on the five issues that I addressed at the last
hearing. First of all, NATCA is committed to operating and to
maintaining the safest air traffic control system in the world.
We believe that our air traffic control system is a national
treasure, and we renew our commitment to ensure that any
changes undertaken to that system keep safety as the bottom
line.
NATCA is working day and night with the FAA to move new
technologies into the work place as quickly, efficiently, and
safely as possible. We are directly involved in every
technology project from its inception, and this collaboration
and team work has been instrumental in ensuring the success of
modernization projects such as the display system replacement
and the standard terminal, automation replacement system.
NATCA currently has representatives on over 65 different
technical projects with the FAA, and we will continue to lead
both the agency and this industry into the 21st Century. By the
same token, when we become aware of certain programs or
procedures which raise safety concerns, we are quick to point
them out to the FAA. Our relationship with this agency is built
on a solid foundation of mutual trust, respect, and integrity,
and we are partners in co-managing the National Airspace
System.
With respect to my promise to monitor other panel members
and evaluate their promises, I can tell you that we are working
closely with the FAA to maximize efficiencies gained from the
addition of the choke-point systems into the National Airspace
System, and as long as we are horse trading gold stars, if you
give Jane one for that, I will take half of that one.
Free Flight Phase I
We continue as full participants in all products of the
Free Flight Phase 1 teams, and we have recently met with ALPA
to develop our relationship at the very highest levels.
Additionally, I have established a rapport with the airlines
and the airport operators that enables us to consult with each
of them on matters of mutual concern.
Controller Staffing
Secondly, NATCA is working to ensure that there are enough
qualified and trained air traffic controllers to handle the
increased traffic growth, the opening of these new choke-point
sectors, and to prepare for the impending retirement crunch.
Our current, five-year agreement between FAA and NATCA calls
for a ``baseline'' of 15,000 air traffic controllers for the
first three years. The agreement calls for 15,300 full-time-
equivalent positions this year and 15,606 next year. The
Administration's fiscal year 2002 budget request is consistent
with these numbers. However, we believe that over time these
numbers may need to be revisited.
[NATCA does not support reopening our contract. However, we
do have a fundamental disagreement with the agency over the
terminology used in the contract. NATCA believes the term
``baseline'' refers to a floor, and therefore the 15,000 figure
represents the minimum number of controllers.]
Controller Work Force Retirements
This August marks the twentieth anniversary of the PATCO
strike, when approximately 11,350 air traffic controllers were
fired. The replacement work force will reach retirement
eligibility in a very short period of time. Retirements will
dramatically increase until 2007, when they will peak at about
8.4 percent of our work force, and by 2010 the cumulative
retirements will, in all likelihood, exceed 50 percent of the
air traffic controller work force. In order to lessen the
impact of that retirement crunch and in order to provide
necessary time for training new hires, Senator Max Cleland will
be introducing legislation on our behalf to change the annuity
computation for air traffic controllers under the Civil Service
Retirement System.
The current annuity computation actually encourages early
retirement because it contains a disincentive to defer
retirement beyond the point at which your guaranteed level is
reached. Changing this annuity computation will provide an
incentive to civil service controllers to continue to work
beyond their initial date of retirement eligibility, and that
will allow us to ramp up the staffing and to train the new
controllers.
NATCA has also met with representatives from GAO, who have
been asked to determine whether the FAA will have a sufficient
number of controllers and candidates to meet both short- and
long-term staffing needs.
And finally on this point, NATCA is working to educate the
public and the media on this very important issue. Recent
articles on air traffic controller retirements have appeared in
Aviation Daily, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Star
Telegram, the Record, and several other publications.
National Airspace Redesign
On our third point, NATCA remains a partner in national
airspace redesign (NAR). We have been actively involved with
NAR since its inception in 1998. NATCA has one full-time
liaison, 11 regional liaisons, and about 350 controllers who
are currently committed to the project. On March 16th of this
year, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the FAA on
national airspace redesign. This MOU states that any changes
should be based on increasing safety, efficiency, capacity, and
that all modifications are to be made in the best interests of
the users of the system and the flying public. The MOU also
provides us with procedures in the event that NAR involves
moving existing airspace boundaries or changing individual
facility air traffic control grade levels and staffing changes.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is
committed to national airspace redesign and will continue to
play an active role in this very evolutionary undertaking,
especially in the technical aspects of this project.
[Fourth, NATCA believes that it is time to consider safe
and reasonable changes to the requirements for separating
aircraft.]
separation standards
FAA separation standards date back to the 1950's. Attempts
to determine the very origin of these standards have revealed
that they were apparently the result of qualitative judgments.
It is generally accepted that these standards were developed
based on a number of factors, including military practices,
radar equipment limitations, and pilot acceptance.
In April of this year, I met with Professor John Hansman
from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who is
evaluating current separation standards. He has been a guest of
this committee. His data shows that while separation standards
have remained unchanged for virtually 50 years, radar
performance has improved five-fold.
We are willing to join with the NTSB, NASA, the pilots, the
FAA, and any other interested parties to carefully examine the
possibility of changing these separation standards. Any
marginal or fractional decrease in these standards could
instantaneously free up unused capacity in this system.
However, we must remember that any contemplated decrease must
also be measured against the absolute litmus test of safety.
management advisory council representation
And lastly, the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association is working to obtain the labor seat on the
Management Advisory Council (MAC). The MAC provides advice and
council to the FAA Administrator and functions in an oversight
resource role for management, policy, spending, and regulatory
matters. To date, the MAC has held six meetings, it has elected
a chairman, and has begun to move forward with its mission.
Yet, there is no labor participation.
In January, I submitted my name to the White House and to
the Secretary of Transportation requesting that I be nominated
to serve as the labor representative to the MAC. I have had
personal conversations with Secretary Mineta and with
Administrator Garvey on this matter. I have written to all
members of the aviation authorization and appropriations
committees asking for their support of my candidacy, and just
this very morning I sent an updated application to the White
House.
My organization, the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association, is the logical choice to represent the unions of
air traffic control system employees. Given the important tasks
and the challenges facing the aviation industry and the MAC, we
believe that it is imperative that the remaining seats on this
council be filled before any further business is conducted.
Mr. Chairman, that completes my testimony. I am honored and
humbled to represent the very finest aviation professionals in
all of public service. We look forward to working with the
subcommittee, the FAA, the pilots, the airlines, the airports,
and any other interested groups to develop and implement
concrete solutions to the capacity crisis. I would be happy to
answer any questions you have might have.
[The prepared statement of John Carr follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
tracking delay progress
Mr. Rogers. Well, thank you very much. Thank all of you for
your statements, and you have given statements that are chocked
full of data and very important information and very important
news. It seems like we are making some progress. We will look
at Mr. Mead's graphs next month to see if the proof is in the
pudding. The graphs that he had in his statement showing the
delays month by month, referring to Figure Number 1, and Mr.
Mead's testimony about the arrival delays at 10 major airlines
for the year, and, of course, we only have 3 in March, which
shows that, as he said, the delays are consistent with last
year. The proof will be whether in April and May, these next
few months, we see the yellow line, which represents 2001, go
down in relation to the other points. Is that not correct, Mr.
Mead?
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir. That is absolutely correct.
airline schedule public disclosure
Mr. Rogers. In your opinion, the steps that have been taken
that you have heard from here at this table today; will you
evaluate what you have heard for us and tell us what you think
is happening, if anything?
Mr. Mead. Well, first and foremost, the whole tenor that
was established in the March hearing of accountability and the
laying out of specific action items, I think, is working. As
you say, the proof will be in the pudding. I am pleased, as I
sit here today, and while there are varying degrees of
progress, I think my assessment is that you will hear progress
across the different fronts. I think that a lot of these
actions, like meeting with somebody, establishing a plan, we
have established a system for tracking delays, establishing new
sectors, we are going to come into implementation by this
summer.
I am disappointed, as I mentioned in my oral remarks, that
the airlines do not plan to invite the American public to help
deal with the delay problem. I think by telling the traveling
public when they call up to book a ticket that the flight they
are about to book on is late 50 percent of the time and
canceled 10 or 15 percent of the time, that the people that are
about to book those flights might choose to book another
flight. That is the one area that I am disappointed in.
The other is, this summer, for better or for worse, we are
going to have to depend heavily on airline voluntary scheduling
practices. It is too early to tell what is going to happen.
American and Delta have taken a very good first step.
Mr. Rogers. When they rearrange their schedules into their
hub airports. Is that what you are referring to?
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir. And the second page of the graph, I
think, graphically illustrates the usefulness of not only the
new capacity benchmarks as they are represented by the blue
line cutting across the graph, but it shows the scheduling of
last year in April as compared to the scheduling today, and in
both instances you can see an improvement, as represented by
the yellow spikes, and the red spikes for 2000. That is good
action. That is progress.
airline progress on delay issues
Mr. Rogers. Well, Mr. Merlis, we have heard two concrete
suggestions that the IG has just mentioned. Would you care to
comment on them?
Mr. Merlis. On the first one, about disclosure, let me give
you an example. There are six airlines that fly between Fort
Lauderdale and New York. Four of them are our member carriers
who do compile this information. Two of them are not. We do not
believe it is appropriate to disparage our own product when our
competitors not only do not collect it; they do not have to
collect that data. And as long as that remains the case, we
have a lot of difficulty saying we are bad, but the other guy,
who may be as bad or worse, has no requirement to do so.
Secondly, with respect to the peaking issue, there are
several other airlines which have done that, and we think this
holds promise. In addition to the examples which he has cited
involving Delta at Atlanta and American Airlines, we have the
situation where Continental has done some de-peaking at Newark,
and they report that their delays in the first three months of
the year at Newark have gone down 20 percent against a picture
which Mr. Mead painted of overall delays remaining relatively
constant. So that does indicate that we may be in relatively
good shape there.
airline requirement to report delay data
Mr. Rogers. Well, I am puzzled a bit by your first
response. You said that of the airlines serving--was it New
York?
Mr. Merlis. New York. I just used that as an example
because I happened to look it up.
Mr. Rogers. That four of them are members of your group,
did you say?
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. And that two of them are not.
Mr. Merlis. That is correct.
Mr. Rogers. Now, who are they?
Mr. Merlis. Jet Blue and Spirit.
Mr. Rogers. Why don't you represent them?
Mr. Merlis. They have not joined us. But the issue, sir, is
that they are not required by law to collect that data and to
turn it over to DOT. The four ATA carriers are required by law,
so they have the information available. The other two airlines
do not have any requirement to collect it or to turn it over to
DOT or to report it.
Mr. Rogers. What percent of the market do those two
airlines have?
Mr. Merlis. I do not know in that market.
Mr. Rogers. It is not very big, though, is it?
Mr. Merlis. I just do not know. I do not know if it is 10
percent or what.
Mr. Rogers. Are you suggesting that the law ought to
require every flier, carrier, to report this data?
Mr. Merlis. I think that when the results of that delay-
reporting advisory committee are out, yes, it should. All of us
should file according to the same system. We have been working
on this pilot program, and then we could talk about that other
issue.
Mr. Rogers. And, Ms. Garvey, when would that take place, do
you think?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I do not want to speak for the Deputy
Secretary designee, who is the new chair of that committee. I
know that the pilot program is in operation now, and they are
talking about coming up with a new schedule this summer. Again,
the Deputy Secretary is chairing that new committee. I am not
sure what schedule he will come up with.
Mr. Rogers. Well, I guess we have got a seventh member of
the body now.
Ms. Garvey. There you go. I agree with Mr. Merlis that it
may be that the requirement becomes all of the carriers. I am
actually making a note of that and it may very well be one of
the recommendations.
chronically delayed flights
Mr. Rogers. Well, it seems to me that it makes imminent
sense for every carrier to furnish data about each flight,
revealing what percent of the time that flight is delayed so
that the buyer can be informed, let the buyer beware. If they
want to pay good money for a 30-percent chance of getting to
New York on time or wherever, then that is their business. If
they want to pay money for an 80-percent flight on another
airline, then let the marketplace run the show. But we have got
to have the data. And we cannot apparently rely upon airlines
to voluntarily furnish that, all of them, and so it seems to me
that we need some means by which that data is mandated. Mr.
Mead?
Mr. Mead. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to clarify
for the record. I did not understand the Air Transport
Association to state that if every airline were to be reporting
these data, that they then would be responsible for disclosing
that to the people that are booking the flights. In point of
fact, the 10 major carriers that account for the very
substantial majority of flights already have this information,
and they are required to disclose it if they are asked by the
savvy traveler. Our point is that when you call up to book a
flight and spend your money, if that flight does not show up on
time 50 percent of the time or more or is canceled 10 or 15
percent of the time, that when you are buying that product, the
airline ought to tell you the product you are about to buy has
a statistically high frequency of not showing up on time.
major airline reporting of delay data
Mr. Rogers. Well, now, Mr. Merlis, the major airlines
collect the data.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. And what do they do with it?
Mr. Merlis. That data is put in many instances on their Web
sites. It is in the computer reservation system so that anyone
who looks in that and wants to know the information can obtain
it by asking for it, and it also is turned over to the
Department of Transportation.
Mr. Rogers. And how timely is it turned over?
Mr. Merlis. I am not well versed on what the sequence is,
whether it is 20 days after the end of the month or 30, but it
is relatively promptly. It is not months and months after the
fact.
Mr. Rogers. Is it restricted what the DOT can do with that
information?
Mr. Merlis. No, sir, it is not.
Mr. Rogers. So DOT could put the number Mr. Mead is
referring to beside each flight, then.
Mr. Merlis. My belief is that on occasion there have been,
and I do not know if it is Mr. Mead or others, who have pointed
out certain flights have been late X percent of the time in
public testimony, so clearly they were allowed to do that. I do
not think any airline has said they should not be allowed to
use the data as they see fit.
FLIGHT DELAY PUBLIC DISCLOSURE
Mr. Rogers. So, Mr. Mead, is that not the answer?
Mr. Mead. Yes. We have done an analysis, and we were
alarmed by the number of flights that are chronically late or
canceled. And the problem is that we do not have the mechanism
inside the Department of Transportation to let people know of
that affirmatively when they are buying the ticket. We found
240,000 flights that were late more than 40 percent of the time
and about 50,000 flights that were late about 80 percent of the
time.
Mr. Rogers. Well, how would you prefer that that
information be given to the purchaser of a ticket?
Mr. Mead. Well, when you call up to buy a ticket and say, I
would like to buy a ticket on such-and-such a flight, I think
that it is reasonable that the airline you are buying the
tickets from would say, or the travel agent would say, the
flight you are about to book, you should know there is a big
risk that it is going to be late.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis says that they provide that
information now if you ask.
Mr. Mead. If you ask.
Mr. Rogers. You are saying they should tell you whether or
not you ask.
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis, what do you think about that?
Mr. Merlis. I think that that could be very complex, sir,
not only because of the competitive issue, which I raised, but
a person calls to say I want to go on the 6 o'clock flight, not
knowing what the flight number is. And so you end up having,
and I see Mr. Mead mentioned travel agents, which have never
had this requirement to disclose this information--only
airlines are required to disclose this. But if you were to then
have the travel agents say, well, there is a five-forty-five
flight, and it says nothing because that five-forty-five flight
is invariably above the threshold, or there is a six-twenty
flight, but that is late 80 percent of the time.
I just think that the information is available to the
customer. I think it has been widely publicized that it is
available to the customer. It is very readily available to the
customer from the airlines and from these on-line sites, and I
think that until there is a consistent mechanism for this
reporting, let's give that one a chance, too.
One of the things that this advisory committee is going to
do is come up with the reporting requirements for the causes of
delay.
INTERNET RESERVATION SYSTEM FLIGHT DELAY REPORT
Ms. Emerson. Mr. Chairman. Will the chairman yield just for
a second for me?
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
Ms. Emerson. Speaking on this subject, I just thought this
was a relevant time to bring this up. I was trying to get a
reservation this morning for my husband on Expedia.com, and it
so happens that a flight from here to St. Louis and then back
again on my hometown airline, I might add, TWA-American, which
is 90 percent on time, it does say that. That is a pretty good
record, I might add. But needless to say, I was able to get
that information. It is on almost all of these Internet books,
which is why I cannot understand, I suppose, why you would not
get it when you call.
Mr. Rogers. Is that so? Do the Internet networks carry
consistently the delay rankings of flights, all flights?
Mr. Merlis. I am not aware of what the nonairline-owned
Internet booking sites have, sir. I just do not know the answer
to that.
Mr. Rogers. All right.
Mr. Merlis. I know the computer reservation systems, or if
you go into the OAG, for example, on line, that information is
right there. When you get into the flight, it tells you what
the percentage on time of the flight in the OAG, on-line OAG,
that is.
ACCURACY OF DATA REPORTING SYSTEM
Mr. Rogers. Ms. Garvey, your statement refers to the
voluntary program that the four airlines have agreed to. What
are your thoughts about the objectives and timeliness of that
effort?
Ms. Garvey. Well, as we mentioned at the last hearing, and
a great deal of credit should go to those four airlines that
did step forward and are putting in the information and
reporting it on a daily basis. I think that is going well. The
real challenge for the Deputy Secretary is going to be to
reconcile the data to understand and to make sure that we are
getting the correct data. As Mr. Merlis and Mr. Mead have
mentioned, there really are some challenges in just making sure
we are getting the correct data and then bringing all of the
other airlines on line. It is a step in the right direction. I
do think it is going to be terrific to have the Deputy
Secretary confirmed so that we can get moving with these task
force. But we are working with him every day, providing the
kind of analysis needed to support BTS in this effort. I do
think they are the right steps to be taking.
ENVIRONMENTAL STREAMLINING
Mr. Rogers. Now, Ms. Garvey, as both Secretary Mineta and
you and everyone here, I think, have committed to shortening
the amount of time it takes to obtain environmental approval
and local permits for runway and taxiway construction, how much
time could we realistically expect to shave off the planning
and approval process for new runways and taxiways?
Ms. Garvey. Well, in many ways it varies both from, the
complexity of the project, and also from site to site. A place
like Houston that had very, few environmental issues, had
enormous local support, very little opposition, got through it
in a relatively short period of time, about 18 months. Other
places, my own hometown of Boston, for example, have been
wrestling through with an airport and a runway issue for a long
period of time, so there are some that may take 10 to 12 years.
What we have found, and Chip may have some other comments on
this, but when we have done an anatomy of the project very
often it is in that early and planning stages where we have
some real issues, trying to build that kind of local consensus.
In fact, some of the permitting at the end of the process is
also a difficult issue. What we can do are some of the steps we
have identified, which is dedicated teams and dedicated staff
that Mr. Barclay has referred to. The Secretary has also
spoken, very directly, about bringing together the
environmental agencies so that we can identify the high-
priority projects and sign memorandums of understanding early
in the process so that we can move the project quickly. But
it's diffcult to give a hard-and-fast, shortened time frame
because it really does differ depending on each project.
CAPACITY BENCHMARK REPORT
Mr. Rogers. Well, as you say, you have now released the
capacity benchmarks as of April 25th.
Ms. Garvey. That is right, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Tell us what that is.
Ms. Garvey. Well, as I mentioned in my longer statement,
the capacity benchmark identifies two numbers. It is an optimum
number, when the weather is really good, how many landings and
takeoffs can be handled safely at an airport. We also looked at
a number that can be handled safely when the weather is not so
good. We think it is a very realistic expectation. The
methodology of this was pretty sophisticated. We went to the
airport itself, talked with the air-traffic people, talked
about what they in their experience could handle. We matched
that against the historic data and used a pretty sophisticated
model from Mitre to work those numbers through. We vetted that
through pretty carefully with the airport. I think everyone is
pretty comfortable with the numbers but the real challenge for
us, as I mentioned, is to focus on solutions at those airports,
particularly those top eight, that really do affect the system.
EXCEEDING CAPACITY
Mr. Rogers. Now, that Capacity Benchmark Report that you
released documents that at many airports the number of
scheduled flights exceed the capacity of the airport. Is that
right?
Ms. Garvey. That is correct, sir. Particularly in bad
weather, what we found at those eight airports, and as I said--
--
Mr. Rogers. In good weather, in perfect weather.
Ms. Garvey. Okay. In good weather there are some airports
where there are some difficulties as well.
Mr. Rogers. How many?
Ms. Garvey. There are eight. I would say probably at two of
them that we have, even in good weather, some difficultly--it
might be three, and I apologize for not knowing exactly.
Mr. Rogers. You are saying three airports are scheduling
more flights than they probably could handle in a day's time in
perfect weather.
Ms. Garvey. Well, in good weather we have some difficulties
at a couple of those airports. Right.
Mr. Rogers. What airports are we talking about?
Ms. Garvey. Obviously, I should have thought of that. They
just reminded me that LaGuardia is the major difficult one.
During certain times of the day Chicago has a problem as well.
And LaGuardia, as you know, we are treating as a unique
situation I know the Congressman is very aware that we have
certainly had some great challenges there.
Mr. Rogers. Are there any other airports that are
scheduling more flights than they can handle?
Ms. Garvey. I think at all eight of those, as we have said,
there are times of the day where we have some concerns. I have
to say it is primarily in bad weather. If you look at the
action plan of all eight airports we suggested that in each of
those eight airports, the airlines review their scheduling. We
think the suggestion that Mr. Mead has made is one that we
share as well. At all eight of those airports, it would be wise
for airlines to take a look at the scheduling.
Mr. Rogers. As Mr. Mead said, American at Dallas and Delta
at Atlanta on their own said look, we are exceeding our
capacity at these airports at certain peak times of the day so
they rearranged their flights so now there is actually only
one, it looks like, at Dallas, one time of day when they are
barely exceeding the capacity.
Ms. Garvey. That's right. It made a big difference.
Mr. Rogers. Why would no other airlines want to do that?
Ms. Garvey. I am not as familiar with the details of it,
but I do know that Newark--I am more familiar with American and
Delta. But I know that Continental has taken some steps and
United as well. So the airlines are beginning to take those
steps. But again, that is why it is important for each one of
those eight airports to look at their action plans. I think the
last item on every one of those plans is that airlines should
review the scheduling. We will work with them very closely to
monitor that.
CAPACITY AT ATLANTA AND DALLAS/FORT WORTH
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mead.
Mr. Mead. One reason why DFW and Atlanta are susceptible to
this type of unilateral action is because the dominant airline
in Atlanta is, of course Delta. The dominant airline at DFW is,
of course, American Airlines.
At an airport where there is more of a competitive mix, and
you have schedules exceeding the capacity benchmark, an airline
will be afraid that if it takes unilateral action, its
competitors will simply fill up the glass at the top. So I
think you have that phenomenon at play at a number of airports
in the country.
AIRLINE SCHEDULES DEMAND MANAGEMENT ACTIONS
Mr. Rogers. What is the alternative then? If they do not do
it voluntarily?
Mr. Mead. Well, I think the alternative will be the demand
management actions that we are supposed to review--like the
lottery they had at LaGuardia. That would certainly be
something that would have to be considered at some airports.
Peak hour congestion pricing is another. Another one that is
currently being discussed in the Congress is scheduling
committees where the airlines can get together under antitrust
immunity and discuss arranging their schedules.
Each of those options, Mr. Chairman, has a pro and it has a
con, and the devil can be in the details of some of these. They
may sound very appealing conceptually, ``why do not the
airlines just get together and arrange their schedules and come
in on the benchmark''. On the other hand, I would be concerned
about what will happen to the smaller commuter fleets, because
the airlines might not find it in their economic interest to
serve smaller communities if they are going to get more money
from big airplanes going between two or three major markets.
A downside to a lottery is that, if you do not carefully
control it, a lottery can end up, creating big winners and some
big losers. For example, you may have--United Airlines. What if
United Airlines wins all the lotteries? That leaves out the
smaller carriers. I know you have been entreated by new
entrants who want a piece of the action, too.
Peak hour pricing, that sounds nice in concept, but in the
end, Mr. Chairman, it is you and I who are going to pay the
price. It is going to be passed on to us, whatever the price is
for that peak hour travel. And who gets the money? Does the
airport that will not expand get the money?
Mr. Rogers. Let us ask Mr. Merlis.
Mr. Merlis. I think all three of them, sir, need to be
addressed. There are pros and cons in all three. We are
supporting the antitrust immunity because we believe that we
can make meaningful progress with the antitrust immunity with
minimal adverse consequences to our customers. The reason I say
that is that even when the peaks are exceeded at these
airports, we are talking about three, five seven flights in a
particular hour. So the goal is to move those three, five, or
seven flights--not to move the 100 flights that are up to the
peak. Because it is on the margins, it is less disruptive to
the basic traffic, those initial 100 flights and communities;
whereas with peak hour pricing all 100 flights would have to be
charged the peak hour price. So we have been advocating in the
authorizing committees where this legislation is being
considered, that this kind of immunity be granted subject to
the appropriate safeguards of the Secretary or Justice
Department being a party to it, whoever needs to be in the
room, and that there be no discussion of prices and issues of
that sort.
Alleviate Peak Demands
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mead's chart here on scheduled arrivals at
Dallas Airport, that data is available to all airlines and they
have it themselves in much more detail than this. They know
that if they move their 11:30 a.m. arrival at Dallas to 11:15,
that that peak would go away, would it not?
I mean it does not take huge changes in schedules to
alleviate these peak periods during the day. Does it?
Mr. Merlis. No, sir. It does not.
Mr. Rogers. Why do not they do that?
Mr. Merlis. Because no carrier wants to do that
individually if his competitor is going to maintain service at
that time.
Mr. Rogers. They may not want to do it, but they do not
want us to do it.
Mr. Merlis. That is why we are advocating the antitrust
immunity so that we can do it, so that we can talk to one
another and agree to move flights, without worrying about
someone coming in and backfilling in that time.
Mr. Rogers. It does not seem to me like you would have to
talk to the other airlines to know that if you move your flight
15 minutes to alleviate a real problem at that hour at that
airport, it is not going to make that much difference, is it?
Mr. Merlis. As Mr. Mead said, in those airports where there
are airlines which have a lot of traffic such as Atlanta with
Delta; such as Dallas/Fort Worth with American; and such as
Newark with Continental, those airlines have unilaterally done
that. The issue arises where you have a large number of
competitors at that common time, the issue becomes who moves
first. That is why we think that the antitrust immunity would
provide an opportunity for the carriers to agree who will move
in the eight o'clock to nine o'clock hour, and someone else
says I will move in the nine to ten hour.
Action Plan for Top Eight Airports
Mr. Rogers. Ms. Garvey, your commitment says that you will
not only develop the benchmarks but that you will use them to
develop action plans at the worst ten airports identified in
the study. First, what are the airports, and what are you doing
about your action plans? And when will they be completed?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, the eight that we focused on in
the report were Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, JFK, LaGuardia,
Newark, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Those are the ones
that have a very high percentage of delays, and also have a
tremendous impact throughout the system. We took eight because
they impact the system. It is quite astonishing when you look
at those eight. And what we did was take a first cut at the
action plans for each one of those eight. We recognize that it
is a first cut. It includes procedures, changes to air space in
some cases and in some cases it includes technology. In a place
like Atlanta, certainly it improves the runway. It also
includes the recommendation that the airlines look at their
scheduling at that particular airport.
What we would like to do, and we have begun discussions
already with the airport directors, is to work closely with
them. While there are elements of those action plans that we
are solely responsible for, there are elements where we need
the airports and want to work very closely with them.
Mr. Rogers. When will they be complete?
Ms. Garvey. The action plans, the first cut, are completed
now and are part of the Capacity Benchmark Report. Most of them
have seen that first cut, but we have not yet received comments
back from them. So as we continue discussions with the airport
directors if there is something we have missed, we want to make
sure that we take advantage of the expertise and work to
include that as well.
airline flight schedules
Mr. Rogers. The IG says that FAA should compare airline
flight schedules for 2000 and for 2001 at their hubs to gauge
the effects of the airlines' voluntary actions on delays and
cancellations. Are you planning to conduct that analysis?
Ms. Garvey. I think the Department of Transportation will
do that, but we will certainly support them in whatever way we
can. I think it is a very good idea. Any time you can create a
baseline and understand what your starting point is and how far
you have come, that is very helpful. To the degree that we can
support the Secretary's office in that, we definitely will. And
if he delegates that to us, we will take that on.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sabo.
Airport Reimbursement for FAA Staff Work
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of questions.
The airport reimbursement for FAA staff work, is it assume--I
assume that what the airport would do is transfer money, not
necessarily staff.
Mr. Barclay. Correct.
Mr. Sabo. And it would be FAA that is in charge of the
staff, either hiring or contracting?
Ms. Garvey. That is right, sir. In fact that was an issue.
We wanted to make sure there was not the conflict of interest.
But I think Mr. Barclay's suggestion that it is like the Food
and Drug Administration is a good analogy.
Environmental Streamlining
Mr. Sabo. Of the environmental issues you face in airport
expansion, what are the most frequent problems you face?
Ms. Garvey. From my perspective, and Mr. Barclay may have a
slightly different one. But from my perspective it is very
often creating that kind of local consensus that you need. That
willingness, the political support at the local level to decide
that we are really going to move out and move forward.
Mr. Sabo. That is really not an environmental issue.
Ms. Garvey. It is really in the planning process. You are
right. I think if you break down the projects, that is where
you see a number of problems. Having said that, there are still
things we can do.
Mr. Sabo. What is it that leads to that local opposition?
Ms. Garvey. Often it is just people not wanting to see an
expansion of an airport in their neighborhood. That is often
the issue.
Mr. Sabo. Mr. Barclay.
Mr. Barclay. Congressman, I do not know of any instances
where an airport was not able to come up with a solution to an
environmental problem or a remediation that would have done
much more for the environment in that areas than the damage of
the project itself. So the point we tried to make in our plan
is that we are not trying to change any environmental
standards. We think we can meet environmental standards or
produce remediations in virtually every instance. It is the
unending debate that you get into in trying to get to applying
the standards that are in the environmental laws.
Because you have both state agencies with their laws and
regulations, and federal agencies with their laws and
regulations, you can even get into a loop where they put time
limits on the EIS approval and so then you go to the state
agency and the state agency holds you so long you have to go
back and redo the environmental impact statement. So it is a
process issue, and a lot of people have a legitimate interest
in being involved in these. But we do have to figure out a way
to put a statute of limitations on the debate and get to the
point of applying the standards, getting a go/no go decision on
them.
I was up in Boston this last week, we had a press
conference on that runway addition which the airport is not
selling as adding any capacity. They do not intend to add
capacity at that airport, and it is a runway that will move
flights out over the bay. It will take a number of flights that
are now going over housing out over the bay, and they still
have enormous local opposition. So it is just in the nature of
these big infrastructure projects.
Boston Runway Expansion Noise Issue
Mr. Sabo. Is the opposition in Boston primarily noise
related? Or is it other?
Mr. Barclay. There are lots of arguments used, but I think
it is fundamentally noise, in my opinion.
Mr. Sabo. The reason I asked for a variety, I was just
curious if you were running into particular air pollution
problems or water pollution problems, or if it centered on the
noise issue.
Mr. Barclay. There are coming air pollution problems for
containment areas, but to date it has been mostly opposition
over individual projects that in all likelihood centers around
noise. So your efforts at increasing R&D on noise are
particularly the right target for the long term on this issue.
Mr. Sabo. I think it is crucial. But I am not sure how we--
what you are talking about is an issue that creates so much
opposition that you cannot get the local people that have to
make the decision say yes. I am not sure how we deal with that
by streamlining the process unless we deal with the essence of
the problem.
Mr. Barclay. Well you do have to, I think as Herb Kelleher
said not long ago, you cannot build buildings without dust, and
you cannot have new flights without any noise. But communities
have to be given a way to come to a conclusion and not be in
unending debate on these.
The people at Boston that are concerned about the expansion
there, many of them do want an air transportation system to
work, and they want to be able to get to San Jose when they are
from the high tech area in Boston. They need the network system
to work. And if it is going to work the people in Dallas are
relying on the people of Boston to keep their capacity up; and
the people in Boston are relying on the people in Dallas to
keep their capacity up, and so on throughout the system.
Because in a network if you put a bottleneck in any one place
it ripples, delays, and affects everyone's performance in the
system.
Local Support of Airport Expansion
Mr. Sabo. But you are not suggesting that we are going to
get involved in approving runway expansions over the objection
of the local officials are you?
Mr. Barclay. We have not suggested federal preemption in
our legislation. But if one looks at the interstate highway
system, the federal government took away the go/no go decision
and said we are going to work with the locals on where the
highways go, and where they meet at state boundaries and so on,
but it is an important interstate transportation system, and
aviation is probably the least intrastate of any of the
transportation forms.
Mr. Sabo. I think on freeways, that was fundamentally
locally decided when and where they were built.
Mr. Barclay. The federal government, as I understand it,
set out the general pattern of the interstate highway system
and worked with the states on whether that routing should be
changed. But they made the fundamental go/no go decision on----
Mr. Sabo. I do not think so.
Mr. Mead?
Mr. Mead. Yes, I think that is an interesting point.
Probably anybody who has gone up and down the Atlantic seaboard
would know that in South Carolina and North Carolina, there was
a fairly substantial stretch there, that I do not think became
part of the interstate system. And the Central Artery in
Boston--the original design there was not to go all the way
around the city. I think the locals thought ``well, we do not
want to cut through the city right now.'' It was some years
later that they got the local consensus, if that is what you
want to call it, to drive I-95 right through the city. So there
are several places in the United States. I think you are
raising a very good point, though, about what would happen, If
there were no environmental laws, I think you still would find
very substantial opposition. Some people just do not like an
airport in their neighborhood.
Mr. Barclay. And I did not mean to get off on the debate
about preemption. What we are asking for is limiting the time
period for a debate, and then the locals can still make the no
go decision, but not hold us all at a place where we do not
know whether we are ever going to add capacity in Boston. That
indecision winds up freezing the system and many of the
partners in it for too long a period of time.
Environmental Streamlining Process Statute of Limitation
Mr. Sabo. I do not know how you get a committee to decide
that it's a no go. I guess lack of action is no until someone
says yes. Is that not accurate? How are you going to enforce
it? I expect the structure of who decides varies. I do not
know----
Mr. Barclay. If you add all the agencies that have a part
of this decisionmaking make their decisions in parallel rather
than in series, and require that for any major runway project
that has a major impact on the national system at a highly
congested airport, all the considerations have to take place in
a three or four year time period and they have to take place
simultaneously, would be a way to get everybody to a decision.
Mr. Sabo. Not necessarily. If the result is significant
local opposition and you are dealing with other elected
officials, they come to the end of the four year period and say
we have not decided.
Mr. Barclay. But all of these projects that I am aware of
have a lot of local officials that are in their favor. They
wind up being held up by significant opposition. And if that
opposition can game the procedures in all of the different
laws--both state and federal, and regulations--can game that
procedure both legally and with the regulatory procedures, they
wind up, a minority winds up holding up a project that the
majority says it is not perfect, but it needs to go forward.
Mr. Sabo. I guess I need to understand a little bit better
what this whole streamlining process means. It sounds like you
are trying to stop suits, lawsuits. I am not sure how you
stop----
Mr. Barclay. A good example was Memphis. It took 16 years
to add a new runway and nobody objected. But they wound up
having to go through a number of federal agencies, that in
their case probably took too long in their reviews, but all the
federal agencies are very, very careful because they are
worried that opposition might crop up later on.
Mr. Sabo. That is different than dealing with the general
political opposition. That is because they were dealing with a
specific issue--I assume dealing with a particular
environmental problem. But they may have taken too long at it.
But that is different than dealing with the general, more
complicated problem that there is political dissent and someone
cannot come to a decision. That is in part why I asked the
original question. Is it air problems, water problems.
Mr. Barclay. We are trying to develop a process for calling
a vote. It is a difficulty that you cannot ever get to. It is
not that you have a majority of people against one of these
projects, it is that you never get a vote called to find out
whether you are going to go forward or not.
Mr. Sabo. That is pushing our capacity here. It might be a
state legislature, and we are going to say we are going to have
a system where you have to vote?
Mr. Barclay. I was using a metaphor there on the vote. We
are not talking about projects, I do not believe, where a
majority of the people in the local area oppose the project. It
is just you have a very strong organized minority and they are
able to game out the procedures for too long on these projects
that are important to the whole nation.
Mr. Sabo. Well----
Mr. Barclay [continuing]. National interests as well as
local interests.
Mr. Sabo. There is a legitimate question of how you
streamline certain environmental procedures and avoid
duplication. You get to a very different issue if you are
saying we are going to compel somebody to make a judgment to
major public infrastructure that is subject to debate in the
political community. One we can deal with. The other one, I do
not know that we either have the capacity or should have the
capacity to force a decision on it. If a decision is not to
build, clearly that can impact that community's acceptability
of their airport facilities, and it may have positive or
negative consequences for that community. But they have to live
with that. I do not know that we can force that decision.
Mr. Barclay. We have provided both individual streamlining
ideas which is what most of our plan is. What you would do in
specific laws, to try to streamline those procedures and to
have procedures run simultaneously. It is an added step to say
there would be some type of a deadline on, everybody has got to
get their consideration done by X date if it is an important
national project, and then you can either go forward or not,
depending on the decision. That is a separate--you may be right
that that is something Congress does not want to step up and
do. But is an issue that I would put before you for
consideration because there are very important interstate
transportation issues being debated.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sweeney.
Antitrust Immunity
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I applaud you
and commend you for these hearings and welcome all of our
panelists back to this very hot room on this very hot topic. If
you did not understand what we are going to do here, we are
going to torture you until we get the system right.
I am trying to get my arms around and comprehend the whole
delay issue and notion more specifically of the role the
airline scheduling plays. Mr. Merlis, Jack Ryan from your
organization in a Hearst article was quoted as citing FAA
figures that only 11 percent of all delays were attributed to
the airline scheduling process. And as it relates to just
really kind of broadly the--where do passengers fit in the
process, and what do airlines think of their passengers and
their customers, and how important are they? While I am no
mathematician, if I do some rough calculations, 680 million
people flew in the last year, and one out of four of those
flights were delayed. So a quarter of 680 million is 14.5
million people delayed, I think it is kind of disturbing that
that is not a problem for the airlines in some respect. You
said in response to the notion that we look at alternative
scheduling processes that you welcome the idea of obtaining
antitrust immunity--I introduced a bill today, that I happen to
support that notion, and I agree with Mr. Mead that we need--
there is both pro and con, and the devil will be in the
details.
What you cited as your fundamental problem with the
processes that exist now from the airlines' perspective is that
you are afraid that if any airline were to voluntarily begin a
scheduling process that focused first on delays and convenience
to the customers, the system would affect, that airline would
face effectively a backfilling by competitors. Is that not an
anti-competitive process in and of itself? What you are
effectively saying is you want to block flights. Is that not
true?
Mr. Merlis. No, sir. What I was saying is our concern is
that if an airline or two airlines unilaterally take down some
flights in a particular time period in order to alleviate the
delays that are caused by successive flights in that time
period, and a competitor comes in and fills up that time
period, then we are back to the same delays we had, and the two
airlines which had removed flights got nothing in return. We
welcome competition. The issue is that where the capacity of
the system is not adequate to accommodate the demands, what
tools are best used in order to smooth out the rough spots?
Slot Controlled Airports
Mr. Sweeney. Is not the question really how do we get to a
system that rates objectively the efficiency of the use of
slots at airports? Do you think the airlines are capable of
providing that process voluntarily?
Mr. Merlis. I think they are, other than the slot
controlled airports, of which there are four, at the other
airports they are capable of doing it--as Mr. Mead pointed out,
in Atlanta and at Dallas/Fort Worth changes are taking place;
as I pointed out at Newark; and at other airports where there
is a higher level of competition there needs to be some
assistance. That assistance, I would suggest, is the anti-trust
immunity so that the carriers who do serve that airport could
reduce those peaks without fear of someone else coming in and
filling in the peak.
Mr. Sweeney. At Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta, which Mr.
Mead also pointed out are dominated by single carriers----
Mr. Merlis. Correct.
Mr. Sweeney. You are not saying that we need to have some
airlines in each of those airports, in every airport to
determine efficiencies of slot distribution, are you?
Mr. Merlis. No, sir.
Mr. Sweeney. I think that is a pretty relevant point.
Mr. Merlis. Those two airports those airlines have done it
unilaterally and it hopefully will have a significant benefit.
Now it is true, someone could come and fill in where they back
out and we go back to delays.
Scheduling Committees
Mr. Sweeney. Mr. Mead, how do we build a system that looks
at efficiency? I feel like Secretary Mineta's proposal to
develop scheduling committees was I think a pretty significant
step in that direction. I would like you to talk about that a
little bit. Also talk about what you see as the dangers in
that. You touched on it briefly.
System Efficiency and Demand Management Option
But is not what we need a sense of greater efficiency in
how we are going to distribute slots and how we are going to
schedule?
Mr. Mead. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, as you look
through those lists, probably 25 percent of the items are
designed to establish ways of analyzing the efficiency of the
system. An example is the capacity benchmarks. What the
capacity benchmarks really tell you, for the first time, is
what an airport can handle by time of day, in good weather and
bad--very fundamental piece of information. Another one--track
the causes of delay--is going to the same point. I could go on.
I probably did not do a very good job in my oral or
prepared statement in concealing my bias here. My bias is that
I am a little nervous about antitrust immunity; I am a little
nervous about peak hour congestion pricing; I am a little
nervous about lotteries and slot controls. And I am hoping that
this summer through less intrusive ways, some of which are just
good citizenship and voluntary behavior, we can put the system
in balance again without taking these more forceful regulatory
actions.
But I would say if we have a repeat this summer of last
year, we are headed down the road to some of these more
forceful actions such as peak hour pricing, the antitrust
issues associated with scheduling committees, and the like.
That is where I see ourselves heading. I think it is too soon
to tell what is going to happen this summer. The Chairman
pointed out that we do not yet have the data on April. When we
see where those bar graphs go in April and May, that will tell
the fortune for the rest of the summer, I think.
Airline Scheduling
Mr. Sweeney. First let me assure you, Mr. Mead, that every
time you come before this committee or even the authorizing
committee when I served on that, you do a very complete job of
presenting the facts. Let me talk a little bit about the good
citizenship with Mr. Merlis, because as I pointed out, 14.5
million people are affected by scheduling, overscheduling
problems, which is something of an intentional act, I think we
can all agree. Yet I look at the five solutions presented in
this bill to the committee and none of them deal with that
problem. They all deal with other things. While the substantial
delays are caused by weather, I am just curious as to then
again where do the airlines place the customer?
That overscheduling issue is your problem.
Mr. Merlis. Correct.
Mr. Sweeney. You can do something about that, yet that is
not a priority apparently.
Mr. Merlis. Well, sir, I think the reason I did not do that
at the last meeting was, first of all, I was not prepared for
that question. I was asked on the fly to come up with five
things and I had not thought about it. But we have carriers who
have embarked upon unilateral actions which are designed to do
that. Southwest has dropped out of San Francisco for the
express purpose of improving its on-time performance. Hopefully
others serving San Francisco will be the beneficiaries of
having fewer flights to San Francisco. As I said, Continental,
in the first three months of this year because of its changing
the schedule at Newark, had a 20 percent reduction in delays.
So I think there is a commitment to doing the right thing, as
much of it as possible as the carrier can unilaterally do. But
they are constantly looking over their shoulder, to see what is
the competitor going to do which adversely affects them. You
are correct.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Sweeney, will you yield?
Mr. Sweeney. Sure.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis, I hear the commitment.
Mr. Sweeney. It is a good day, Chairman.
Airline Commitment To Solving Overscheduling Problem
Mr. Rogers. You will see that the airlines commit to
solving their overscheduling problem.
Mr. Merlis. To the extent they can. There are competitive
reasons why an individual could not do it on its own.
Mr. Rogers. Let me think some more.
Slot Allocation
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me ask a couple of related questions of both Mr. Mead
and Ms. Garvey. I spoke recently to the folks in the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey--this is not a formal
proposal as of yet although I think they are preparing one,
which is the concept that they do all of their scheduling.
Similar to their idea of the lottery process. I am interested
in your response to that notion as a test process, as a means
of trying to find a way to be more efficient in slot
allocation.
Ms. Garvey. I have not seen the proposal, but I will give
you what my initial reaction would be. I would be hesitant of
anything that would vulcanize the system too much. I think the
extent with which the federal government works with the Port
Authority as we are doing, for example, on the proposal for
demand management strategies, in my view that is a much better
approach. I am not sure of the legal implications of what they
suggested, but I certainly would like to talk to them about it.
I think the cooperative approach is a better one.
Mr. Mead. I think a community should have some say-so over
air traffic. I do not think a community should have any control
or say over scheduling. I think that is very clearly the role
of Interstate Commerce. I can understand, though, why some
people in Chicago do not want a new runway. And, environmental
considerations notwithstanding, I personally would be prepared
to respect that decision. But I would be very concerned about a
locality deciding what flights to accept from where. The Port
Authority also, I think is quite interested in peak hour
pricing.
The committee should know that that area, New York, is
grandfathered under the revenue diversions law. That is to say
that money they collect they can divert into other things that
are not airport related. And I would just submit for your
consideration, sir, if they were to impose for congestion a
peak hour pricing fee, one, does the Port Authority contemplate
getting the money? And two, what do they plan to do with that
money? I think you would find that the airlines would ask those
two questions as well, and they are good questions.
Local Government Involvement In Airline Schedules
Mr. Sweeney. Well of course we are going to grow service to
upstate New York. At least that is what I would hope would
happen.
Mr. Barclay, do you disagree with the notion that leaving
it to individual localities would tend to vulcanize the system
and create other problems? I agree with both Ms. Garvey and Mr.
Mead that we need you at the table, among other people. But----
Mr. Barclay. One of the first provisions that was put in
the Airline Deregulation Act was a federal preemption there
saying that the local governments could not get into routes,
rates and service that the federal government had just gotten
out of, and if you had five CABs (Civil Aeronautical Boards)
around the country instead of one in Washington, that would be
a more difficult network to operate.
Slot Allocation And Competition
Mr. Sweeney. Let me ask you this final question. David
Blevin of the Airports Council suggested recently that
auctioning off of slots at airports might be a step toward
solving that. AIR 21 looked to roll back slots in an effort to
promote competition. My question is since airport owners have
been working to reclaim gates from airlines, again based on
efficiencies and use, in order to promote competition, would
not that idea, essentially slotting every airport, work against
competition? Work certainly against competition with small
carriers.
Mr. Barclay. Every time you get into any of the demand
management schemes it gets ugly as soon as you start looking
deeply into it, because by definition you are leaving out.
Someone wants access and they have a good argument for access
from their point of view, but you are saying to somebody no, no
room in the inn for you. So every demand management scheme you
come up with has real problems, whether it's lottery, auction,
peak hour pricing. The economic allocations do reward those
with deepest pockets and biggest airplanes. One of the ways
Continental, as I understand it, has helped straighten out some
of their Newark problems is by substituting bigger airplanes
for slots scheduled where they used to have smaller airplanes,
and that has--they have had to go around and explain to members
of Congress why they were losing air service.
La Guardia Airport
Mr. Sweeney. Absolutely. And as a representative of upstate
New York, that is the real red flag for a guy like me.
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, I think just a couple of other
points. I think if you look at something like an auction to try
to balance out some of the issues that you mentioned, you could
carve out an exemption of some sort. A base, for example, X
number that go to the small communities, X number for low cost
carriers, and that protects that public policy. It is not the
pure demand management strategy, but I think as we look at a
place like LaGuardia, those are the kinds of considerations
that we have to think about. Mr. Mead mentioned some of the
challenges around peak hour pricing, and I think he is right.
There is another challenge at a place like LaGuardia. The fact
of the matter is, there is a peak hour. Unfortunately, it lasts
all day long. So at LaGuardia you have a particular problem
that does not exist at other places.
Mr. Sweeney. I have other questions, but I will yield back.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Olver?
Philadelphia Airport
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like first to
clarify something with Mr. Mead way back in your testimony.
Things get into my head and it takes a long time to forget
them. I think you said that Philadelphia was one of the places
that had finished a runway recently.
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Mr. Olver. When did they finish that runway?
Mr. Mead. 1999.
Mr. Olver. So Philadelphia having completed its runway,
then the data that we are talking about for what the choke
points are for delays includes Philadelphia having brought that
runway into usage and still it is running delays.
Mr. Mead. Yes.
Mr. Olver. Is that correct?
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, there is one sort of unique
situation in Philadelphia, and that is there is a technology
called Precision Runway Monitor (PRM) that we think is going to
be very helpful. It is not yet on-line, so the runway, while it
is being used, has limited use right now. And when PRM, the
technology, is put in place, we think that is going to improve
that.
Mr. Olver. Do you think that will solve the problem for
delays at Philadelphia with the additional capacity? I do not
know how many runways they have----
Ms. Garvey. I do not think it will solve it. I think that
is why getting together with the airports and looking at what
else we can do. There are, for Philadelphia, some additional
improvements that are already planned and again, at that one we
suggested that the airlines look at the scheduling as well.
There is also some free-flight technology that will be going
into Philadelphia. There are some things planned but there is
more that we need to do.
Capacity Enhancements At Most Delayed Airports
Mr. Olver. Then we really need to wait for awhile until the
new technology is in to see whether in fact increasing the
number of runways does much good. I mean I am looking at this
wonderful tabulation, Mr. Mead, of the runway projects that are
in process. Philadelphia is not on there. Philadelphia, you
pointed out, was the only one of the three that either had
completed or were somewhere in the schedule. Atlanta and Boston
are down there some ways. We have problems in Boston that we
may all be ancient before that gets done, I would guess. I do
not know. But it does not leave you with much really strong
hope given what is being said about Philadelphia.
Mr. Mead. May I put another statistic into the mix, sir?
Mr. Olver. Sure.
Mr. Mead. It responds to your question I think more
directly. In Philadelphia, with the runway and with the
improvements that Administrator Garvey referred to that would
maximize the use of that runway. They are projecting it would
yield a 17 percent increase in Philadelphia's capacity. That is
inclusive of the runway and inclusive of that new technology.
At the same time, they are forecasting a 23 percent increase in
traffic. Your net difference is a negative six percent.
Atlanta And Boston Choke Points
Mr. Olver. I do not know what the similar sort of situation
would be, whether anyone has done an analysis on Atlanta and
Boston, two of the other major choke points, as to whether or
not if those were completed with technology we would find what
percentage as the increase. Maybe your benchmark studies are
showing that.
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, that is right. In fact in Atlanta,
for example, which is actually a good news story, the runway
there is expected to increase capacity by somewhere around 20
to 30 percent. And that combined with the technology allows
Atlanta to keep pace with the demand that is expected in the
future. Demand is forecasted to grow by about 28 percent. The
runway plus the technology gives Atlanta about 37 percent.
In a place like Boston, as was mentioned a little bit
earlier, the runway is not really for increased demand. But
Boston is not expected to grow to the same degree that some of
the other airports are. It is about six percent. The runway
that is being talked about is really to handle the traffic that
is there right now.
Mr. Olver. Of course I cannot quickly translate the
possibility in five years in Atlanta, because we were talking
about 2005 even getting a runway in place, where a high delay
problem would choke point Atlanta for that period of time. And
I cannot tell whether we are going to be without a delay
problem, even with the net 37 percent that the technology plus
the runway gives you, given a 28 percent projected increase in
traffic out of Atlanta. At the very least it sounds as if we
are running on a treadmill here. Wherever we are, we are
running on a treadmill just to try to keep up with what is a
little bit behind along the way. But it does say to me that the
capacity to do this by way of runways is only at best keeping
up with the problem. My understanding here is, looking at the
points that have been made by Secretary Mineta, he speaks of
disbursal of flights off peak hours into underused airports and
developing incentives and disincentives for airlines and
airports to disburse flights.
Flight Disbursal
Mr. Mead, you mentioned that one of your key ones is
tracking the disbursal of flights from hubs to smaller
airports. I am just curious. At these places where the major
choke points exist, where is it, Mr. Mead, that you think that
the potential for disbursal is highest? We are obviously trying
to get at choke points. The disbursal is one of those things
that you clearly believe would have some positive benefit here.
Of the eight places, do you have a sense?
Mr. Mead. I have a sense, not within the eight. I do not
think there is much room for disbursing among the eight. But I
think, for example, one good example is Atlanta and New
Orleans.
Mr. Olver. New Orleans is not on the eight.
Mr. Mead. We are talking about small to medium-sized
airports where it might be economically feasible to disburse
some flights. You have some airports that we mentioned in
testimony before this committee before, such as Mid America. It
is not being used hardly at all and we paid $300 or $400
million for it. That is in Illinois. But the airlines do not
want to use that airport.
Mr. Olver. But that is not a disbursal point, is it? Oh,
you view it as a potential disbursal for O'Hare. But it is
right next to St. Louis.
Ms. Garvey. St. Louis, yes.
Boston Flight Disbursal
Mr. Olver. But St. Louis is not on the choke points.
Ms. Garvey. The one I might mention, Congressman, is our
favorite, Boston. I think Boston does have the potential to
disburse. In fact we are already seeing it. There are----
Mr. Olver. The so-called reliever airport----
Ms. Garvey. The so-called both reliever----
Mr. Olver [continuing]. Manchester, New Hampshire and
Providence, Rhode Island, and a couple of places in
Massachusetts. If that were to move very effectively, would
that eliminate the delay problem in Boston pending a runway
which is at least five years away? And which may or may not
move us ahead versus where we are now.
Ms. Garvey. It would not eliminate delay, but I think it
certainly would help. If you look at the numbers at Logan, for
example, it needs to be about 80 percent of the travel in the
region. It has now gone down to 60, and there are more going to
Providence and Manchester. I think we have to encourage that.
Worcester, Bradley. I think that is one place where that could
happen. You had mentioned at the last hearing, and you made
note, and I thought it was an observation. We certainly went
back and looked at as well. You said that if you look at all
the runways that are planned, the 18 runways that are planned
in the next few years, you made the point that few if any are
actually part of the top eight. The worst ones. And that is
true. We have San Francisco in the very earliest stages; we
have Atlanta coming along; we have Boston that also has some
real environmental issues. On the other hand, a number of those
18 are at airports where if we see more infrastructure perhaps
there will be a greater market. In many ways I think it does
have an impact.
CHOKE POINTS NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY AREA
Mr. Olver. I do not think so. I am not in any way
suggesting that the places that have runways planned should be
stopped because they are not in the choke points or anything. I
mean I think the treadmill that we are on is one that they are
going to have to build their capacity as best they can in order
to not be in the sad situation along the way. I am surprised,
actually. I would have thought three of those choke points are
Newark, LaGuardia and Kennedy. There are bunch of smaller
airports, at Islip, at Westchester, at Newburgh, at Teterboro,
some of them have, it would seem to me--Stewart, Newburgh. Of
course. Mr. Sweeney would love to have something happen at, I
think. More to happen at them than does.
I am surprised, especially Mr. Mead, when you point out
that AIR 21 Bill, we have complicated the situation this last
year from your testimony rather clearly. There are slot
controls at LaGuardia, allowed for exemptions for slot controls
for new entrant airlines and for airplanes with fewer than 71
seats. Well, those smaller airports, which might be due to
somewhat similar to the reliever airports that Boston has been
talking about, though those are already million person
metropolitan areas where they have the reliever airports. It
would seem to me there ought to be some potential for smaller
passenger planes dealing with going into places that are not
right in the core of LaGuardia or JFK, when you really want to
get to some other place around the large metropolitan area of
New York.
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, I think you are absolutely right.
And particularly with a place like Stewart. And frankly, even
at JFK. It has a little bit of capacity. Making the decision to
travel out of JFK rather than LaGuardia, it was a very wise
decision. The reason I did not point to it, though, I will tell
you is that a number of those other reliever airports that you
spoke about, Teterboro and others, have enormous community
issues surrounding them. We have been somewhat reluctant to, or
at least we are acknowledging realistically it is going to be
difficult to get some of those.
CAPACITY BENCHMARK REPORT
Mr. Olver. Does your benchmark study that is completed,
does that first cut of the action plans take into account any
kind of an analysis of a potential disbursal as one of the
routes? Since the administrative one, everybody says there are
problems with trust and problems with the peak hour pricing and
problems with auctions and lotteries and so on, none of these
are simple solutions. None of them are going to be done
immediately.
Ms. Garvey. You are right, Congressman. None of these are
simple solutions. To your question about does it include some
disbursement to other airports----
Mr. Olver. Analysis of the disbursement?
Ms. Garvey. It does not. But that is exactly I think the
kind of discussion that we can engage in with the airport
directors. I think that really has to be looked at almost on a
regional basis.
Mr. Olver. It is easy for me to suggest Teterboro or
Westchester as disbursal possibilities. I mean we have also one
in the Boston area called Hansom Field which----
Ms. Garvey. You notice I did not mention that, in deference
to you, Congressman. [Laughter.]
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
AIRLINE DELAYS
Mr. Sweeney. Thank you, Mr. Olver. I welcome your support
on the study plan that we have for the Stewart Airport. I have
good news and bad news for you, Mr. Merlis. The good news is I
was wrong about something. I told you I was not good at math.
The bad news is the number is worse for you. I said 14.5
million passengers were delayed. It's 145-plus million
passengers. Why the airlines would resist a voluntary notice of
passengers of chronic delays is beyond me. It is a little bit
like going to a casino and playing black jack with the
exception that the dealer will not show you his cards. But with
that I will turn it over to the gentleman from Arizona, Mr.
Pastor.
TRACKING AIRLINE VOLUNTARY ACTIONS ON DELAYS AND CANCELLATIONS
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Mead, this information you gave us on the
second chart, and the third one, are dealing with Americans and
governments. Who is going to now compare their voluntary
scheduled arrivals at Dallas and Atlanta, and compare them to
the delays and cancellations? Because that is the third part
that we need. They may have done it, but the fact does not help
solve the problem with delays and/or cancellations.
Mr. Mead. The direct answer to that question is--I am
prepared to have our office do this.
Mr. Pastor. Okay.
Mr. Mead. Once. At the beginning.
Mr. Pastor. Once means the month of April?
Mr. Mead. Maybe we would do it twice. But the point is----
Mr. Pastor. April and May.
Mr. Mead. Yes. We will be doing that. But the larger point
here is that in the Department of Transportation, there is an
agency called the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. There is
the FAA. I think that, as a matter of course, one of them
should be collecting this information.
Mr. Pastor. I agree with you. I am just trying to find out,
because we have talked about scheduling and how we take it from
peak hours. We have two airlines who have started, and we need
to find out who is going to track it. So, Mr. Chairman, maybe
you can give a directive here, or give another star to whoever
is going to do it, but we need to collect the data and compare
it. It is good that they have done it. Now the question is,
does it solve the problems.
Mr. Mead. We are willing to do it, we are certainly open to
doing it initially. But I think over the longer term----
Mr. Pastor. It is the long term that we need to--the
information in the long term is what we need. Maybe, we have
been talking about prime time and everybody's scheduling that
particular hour, and as these airlines look at it voluntary, it
does not show a solution. Then maybe we are going up the wrong
tree.
Mr. Rogers. Would the gentleman yield, sir?
Mr. Pastor. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. I agree with Mr. Mead. The Secretary's office
can handle that for us over the long pull. Mr. Mead should not
be expected to do a bureaucratic chore over the long pull,
unless he really wants to.
OPERATIONS SPECIFICATIONS MODIFICATION
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that if we
started this, that we are collecting data already on two
airlines, that we may be able to see whether or not our concern
over all the flights leaving at certain hours really is a
problem, because we have some data to compare it with. I am
going to go back with Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Olver. Because I will
agree that Indianapolis and Nashville and Raleigh/Durham and
Dayton were probably bad ideas. I did fly from Nashville, and I
would tell you that I never saw the local market there. So I
will concede that. But I still think that disbursal and mini-
hubbing or spoking may be a possible solution. But before I get
to that, in your testimony on page four, Mr. Merlis, you talk
about the pre-National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and
those assessments and how if they are not included with the
ops, operation specification, it causes problems. How do we
solve that problem, if it is a problem? Because if we are going
to look at disbursal airports this may be a problem. How do we
deal with that problem?
Mr. Merlis. I think the way we deal with that problem is
that the FAA reverts to the practice it used to follow where
those kinds of additions to an operations specifications are
rendered, categorically excluded that is it is not subject to
this pre-NEPA environmental assessment. That is the way it was
for years. And it was a recent change in policy which has
required the submission of these environmental assessments
before a carrier starts service to an airport which it had not
previously started service to.
Mr. Pastor. Well, Ms. Garvey is ready to jump up at you so
I will let her go ahead and do it. The problem that we are
talking about, finding other hubs for airliners to land, we
need to solve this problem, I assume.
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Merlis is right. We issue operations
specifications changes all the time. It just would not make
sense to get bogged down. And in fact most of them are very
routine. There must be some confusion, I did see this in Mr.
Merlis' testimony. We have not really changed the policy. There
has been a clarification. I think they really are rare cases
where either an air carrier wants to move to larger jets that
may be noisier or to a different kind of aircraft. Jet Blue
when it started in New York was in a non-attainment area and
had to go through more environmental processes. I need to
understand that. I will certainly follow up. It is those rare
cases where the environmental assessment very often routine
environmental assessment is looked at.
Mr. Pastor. But the testimony I read basically says it is
an exercise that costs a lot of money, it has disincentives,
and usually the result is not one that would require--the
information does not help an airline. So if we are talking
about going to reliever airports, what can we do to ensure that
we meet the objectives that FAA may have so it does not become
such a barrier.
Ms. Garvey. We will definitely follow up. I do want to go
back, though, to something that was said earlier which is why
we are streamlining. We want to do it as efficiently as we can.
We obviously do not want to be burdensome. When you are either
in a non-attainment area or you are moving to perhaps noisier
or different aircraft, I think there are some environmental
steps that you do have to go through. But I would be happy to
look at it again, and perhaps there are some specific
suggestions from the Air Transport Association that we could
adopt. We would certainly consider. Yes.
[The information follows:]
The issuance of operations specifications (op spec), which
authorize an operator to perform certain operations, is a
``federal action'' that triggers the requirement for
environmental review under the National Environmental Policy
Act.
Most op spec changes have no environmental impact--and no
potential for environmental impact--and are categorically
excluded (catex) under FAA Order 1050.1D, ``Operating
specifications and amendments thereto which do not
significantly change the operating environment of the
airport''. If, in the rare case where a catex cannot be
justified, then the next step in the process will be an
environmental assessment.
In the case of new flights, the FAA examines the current
level of operations and the environmental planning documents
created by the airport to see if the new operations fall within
the growth planned by the airport. The FAA will analyze the
noise impact of the new service, and in clean air non-
attainment areas we also study the air quality impact of the
service. It is the applicant's responsibility to provide this
data to the FAA but often it can be obtained through the
airport sponsor. If the new flights fall within the expected
growth (which is not unusual), we document a catex and issue
the op spec change.
ENVIRONMENTAL STREAMLINING
Mr. Merlis. I think that is great. I will just use the
example. Southwest Airlines when it went into West Palm or Fort
Lauderdale, I do not remember which, in a 737, and other
airlines were already flying into that airport with that plane
which Southwest Airlines has 300 of, had to go to submit this
environmental assessment and then it received this no adverse
action decision after spending a couple of hundred thousand
dollars. It makes no sense.
FLIGHT DISBURSAL
Mr. Pastor. I agree that maybe not every city can be a hub,
but if we take some of the examples that I heard today, that I
could also provide myself--If we take San Francisco. People are
flying into San Francisco so they can go to San Jose. Because
that is where all the action is.
Mr. Merlis. Congressman, airlines are doing that. To go to
San Jose from Washington, D.C. you used to go to San Francisco.
There are now non-stops to San Jose. Carriers are doing that.
They are disbursing flights, but there still has to be
sufficient volume.
As I pointed out in my testimony, United Airlines flies to
John Wayne Airport, Ontario Airport, Burbank Airport, and Los
Angeles International Airport. Now it may increase flights as
volume demands at one of them, and they have, distributed
traffic and Los Angeles International is still a congested
airport.
Mr. Pastor. I understand that. But I guess the question as
I ask it, what incentives can we provide so that that airline
will look at flying to LAX and compare it to Ontario and say
you know what, there is enough of an incentive here that I may
consider flying to Ontario a few more times. Because people are
going to Los Angeles. What can I do? So what can we do, or what
incentives can be provided?
Mr. Merlis. I regret to say that I think only the
marketplace can create those incentives. That is why some of
these cities end up having more traffic after a carrier tries
it with two flights a day, and then a couple of years later it
has three because demand has been established. People have
found it to be more convenient. Look at the example of
Manchester and Providence which were cited by the
Administrator. Those were two airports which are used more now
and people have found them to be convenient airports, if I can
use that term, and traffic is going into Manchester and
Providence instead of going into Boston. So in part it is
chicken and egg, it is marketplace, and I do not think that it
is a matter of simply providing financial incentive.
There have been situations where communities have induced a
carrier to fly more flights to that community by virtue of a
local travel and tourism organization or a chamber of commerce
organization, getting people to agree that they would use that
airline if they flew into that community. Northwest did it, as
I recall, in Rockford, Illinois. When American pulled out of
Rockford, Illinois. So there have been efforts undertaken. I
just find it difficult to identify a specific incentive that is
financial in nature, since that ultimately is the driver in
this, other than the marketplace.
DELAYS AT SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT
Mr. Pastor. The bottom line is the cost, so there must be--
I am trying to find an incentive. In San Francisco, as you
know, San Jose is becoming now a reliever. What about Oakland?
I mean Oakland is only a Bay Area Regional Transit (BART) ride
away.
Mr. Merlis. Oakland is a full airport. That is what
Southwest did. It pulled out of San Francisco, all of its
flights--it has no more flights into San Francisco--and is
using Oakland because the delays at San Francisco were so
damaging to their schedules. But if you take a look at Oakland,
Oakland has most of its gates pretty much full most of the day.
There is some construction that is planned and hopefully that
will increase Oakland's capacity which does not have as much
adverse weather as San Francisco, and I can assure you, the
demand is there.
Mr. Pastor. Time to get a runway built in Oakland. That is
a pretty simple system, I would bet.
Mr. Pastor. It may be.
Mr. Mead. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. Yes.
PEAK HOUR CONGESTION PRICING
Mr. Mead. One sure incentive, or almost sure incentive is
on this peak hour congestion pricing. In theory how this would
work would be that, at San Francisco, if you want to fly there
during certain hours or leave there during certain hours, you
would pay a premium. The premium would have to be so steep that
it would provide an economic disincentive to travelers to fly
out of San Francisco. However, another area airport would not
have a corresponding fee and it would be cheaper. That is why
there is a body of opinion that is in support of the peak hour
congestion pricing scheme as a way of dealing with the
scheduling. My concern is that we ought to try to exhaust other
alternatives before we go that route.
RUNWAY EXPANSION AT PHOENIX
Mr. Pastor. Well, what are the alternatives? Building more
runways. I have to tell you, and I will tell my colleague, Mr.
Sabo, Phoenix just finished and dedicated a runway, and that
third runway now is getting calls to the FAA from different
parts of the city. Ms. Garvey is probably now hearing from
Ahwatukee. Before it used to be Tempe, now it is Ahwatukee. And
to build a fourth runway, which the City Council and the Mayor
and the business community is all in favor for, there are small
groups now that have built up and would fight it. At every
hearing, and lawsuits, and it would be the noise that they are
confronting that would cause them to fight this fourth runway.
So runways are not the only solution. The solution that maybe
in the long run, but in the interim we need to find different
solutions.
So what I am trying to do is find incentives that the
airlines would go to nearby airports in metropolitan areas.
Look at the choke points. Kennedy, LaGuardia north. Guess where
they are going? Manhattan or Long Island. That is where they
are going. So maybe it is possible to look to other airlines
that are convenient for people to land at airports that are
close to Manhattan or New York City. That is where I think that
may be a possible solution. I just do not want to write it off
by saying we have this regulation, it makes it hard, or there
may not be any incentive. I am looking for those incentives
because I think in the short term that may be a way to solve
the problem.
Mr. Merlis. I have a suggestion, sir.
AIRPORT CURFEW
Mr. Pastor. Yes, sir.
Mr. Merlis. White Plains has an airport. Westchester County
Airport is an airport with a curfew. They don't want planes to
land there. It is a voluntary curfew, but they close the garage
so that you cannot use the airport. If Congress were to take
action about these airports that have curfews--Long Beach
Airport has a curfew, or a restriction. Only 43 or 41 flights a
day I think. John Wayne Airport has a limitation of a certain
number of million passengers per year, though the airport can
certainly accommodate more.
Mr. Pastor. But Mickey Mouse can only handle that----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Merlis. But if those kinds of local impediments which
are disincentives for carriers to use those alternative
airports were removed, then airlines might be willing to
establish a larger presence. I am sure the reason United does
not fly to Long Beach is that if a market developed, it is only
limited to the number of flights it can have. It cannot grow
the way it would want to. But Long Beach Airport can certainly
accommodate a lot more than just 40-odd flights a day.
FLIGHTS AND DUTY TIME LIMITATIONS
Mr. Pastor. There is another reason that airlines are, at
least explaining to me that they are having problems and delays
or cancellations, and that is the flight time and duty
limitations. I have found where now they say well, the pilots
now, as they say, are illegal, or the crew is not here yet
because if we put them on this particular flight they are
illegal.
Mr. Woerth. First of all, to curb the competitive edges of
all the airlines which are hugely competitive we would need to
have one rule apply to everybody so they do not try to get a
competitive edge and negotiate the safety by who has the
loosest rules wins, or the least safe.
Mr. Pastor. You mean to tell me that each airline decides
what safety is and then defines what the flight times----
Mr. Woerth. The federal rules are so inadequate that the
only protection for flight time duty is union contracts. And a
union contract at the point where it matters becomes worthless
because if you are ordered to fly by your airline and ignore
the contract, you will be fired if you do not do it because you
are insubordinate. You are supposed to grieve it later. Fly now
and grieve later. The reason we need the same rules for every
airline is to stop that.
One of the things I describe in here, again it goes to the
scheduling practices that become unrealistic. If it is peak
hour scheduling that is unrealistic, it is also unrealistic to
schedule a pilot to a 16 hour duty day or 15 hours and 59
minutes and hope that nothing goes wrong all day long so he is
going to be able to complete that flight. That goes on. Then
they argue about well, it looks like you are going to 18 hours.
Go ahead. But the federal rule says the pilot is responsible
for safety, and if you are tired, do not fly. But if you cancel
the flight, guess who is in trouble? They will not punish you
for that flight. You will be punished later for canceling a
flight. We need to have rules that make sense. And what I
described earlier with this reduced rest, if it does not make
sense to plan a pilot to land at 11:00 o'clock at night and
take off at 7:00 in the morning, then do not allow them to
schedule it that way. They can do that right now. It is
perfectly legal to schedule, the computer will build an
optimized schedule that does not take into account the real
world. Because on a perfect day it might work so they want to
save money. But when they land at midnight, two things either
happen. You delay the flight, delay the clock in the morning,
or some terrible experience, which happens all the time, and
they should maybe tell somebody about that. But on the other
hand, the worst thing I fear is sometimes the pilot is
pressured. We need to take that flight out. Now somebody has to
make a judgment call on both safety and if he is going to
violate a Federal Aviation rule, if there is a dispute on that
rule. Or is it really just your contract?
We need to eliminate all the confusion. Air crews and
airlines should not be fighting over this. We ought to have one
rule for everybody, and it ought to be a safe rule, and then we
can take safety out of the equation. But also we can stop the
practices--they cannot seem to stop themselves. If one
airline--again, there are comparative urges. Somebody is going
to have more frequency and have that last flight get in at
night, if the businessman wants the last flight out of
wherever; but he also wants that person to turn out at 7:00
o'clock in the morning. Until that is not legal, they will
continue to do it. Then you are going to have that canceled
flight in the morning.
Mr. Pastor. Mr. Chairman, who would have jurisdiction over
that?
FAA RULE ON FLIGHT AND DUTY TIME
Mr. Rogers. Well, I was going to clarify that, if you will
yield.
Mr. Pastor. I will yield.
Mr. Rogers. Are you saying that instead of this being left
just to bargaining agreements between the airlines and pilots
union that there should be a nationwide rule by the FAA?
Mr. Woerth. Yes. And the rules we have had now have been
trying to be modified now for many years. We had a new rule
proposed in 1995. It has never been acted on. We have been
waiting for a supplemental because industry had some disputes,
since last year. And some of the arguments we hear back, well,
we should not have very tight federal safety rules, we should
let the unions bargain for that. I just explained to you, that
does not work because----
Mr. Rogers. Ms. Garvey, what do you say about that?
Ms. Garvey. I think there are really two actions that Mr.
Woerth is speaking about. One is clarifying the existing rule.
I think he spoke about that in his oral testimony, and we will
have something in the Federal Register. I hope it is in the
next week to ten days. It is all completed, we are working with
the Federal Register now. So there is a clarification, that is
step number one.
Step number two that Mr. Woerth spoke about is the rule,
the federal rule at the federal level. And he is right. He has
worked long and hard with RTCA. I know the airlines and the
pilots worked very hard in coming up with a rule that they
could both agree to. They were not able to, as he pointed out.
We have taken the work that they have done. A very high
priority for us is to get that out in short order. But the
first is to get clarification of the existing rule. As Mr.
Worth pointed out, there are some differences in
interpretation. We need to make that very clear, which we will
do in the Federal Register.
FREE FLIGHT PHASE I
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Clyburn.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I have got two short questions. The first one
for the Administrator. Ms. Garvey, I am looking on page 33 of
Mr. Mead's submission, and he says here that the Free-Flight
Phase One program is past the halfway point in terms of its
planned budget and schedule, and FAA is currently spending
about $18 million per month on FFPI [ph] initiatives. Now I
understand that of the $700 million for this program, they have
expended about 80 percent for all of these--for software,
testing and all of that. Should we be really concerned that the
program is not quite on schedule?
Ms. Garvey. First of all, I think the 80 percent that Mr.
Mead refers to, his point is that 80 percent of the funding is
tied up in three of the automation tools. It is PFAST, URET and
TMA, and that is right. I think he also points out that this is
the hardest to do. It is the most challenging. We agree with
that. Having said that, however, we are on schedule. And some
of you have had the pleasure of meeting with Charlie Keegan who
is the head of that program office. He is terrific, and it is a
very focused team. They have met their deadlines, and they have
met their schedules. And I have no reason to believe that they
will not. They have a very robust risk mitigation process. In
fact I would like to add that the IG staff has complimented Mr.
Keegan on that being one of the best they have seen. While I
think there is always reason to be watchful, and Mr. Mead's
point about let us watch the implementation is right on. I
certainly am encouraged by the record to date.
Mini Hubs
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I see that as we have these discussions about
what we call these choke points, discussions on that. I feel so
good that you are the chair of this committee coming from
Columbia, South Carolina, and your being from a like-sized
state, these people make me feel a little bit inadequate to
serve on this subcommittee with all these discussions. But I am
concerned a little bit about the incentives that we have talked
about some time ago, I think in the last year, for the, to
encourage what we call the mini-hubs or, what do we call them,
sub-hubs? Mini-hubs. I thought we talked about trying to put
some incentives in place that would encourage the development
of these sub-hubs. Have you given more thought to that?
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir. In my testimony we have explored that
both with our members as well have our Director of Research, do
a little research on it. There are several examples where I
guess the word was mini-hubs were tried about ten years ago,
failed economically because there was not enough locally
generating traffic. I think that as demand increases and as the
congestion increases, what we are seeing is carriers trying to
offset adverse costs of the delays as well as the adverse
inconvenience to customers by finding alternative means.
Some have suggested that the acquisition of TWA by American
is an example of that. American now has a new hub. Instead of
having to rely upon O'Hare, it has O'Hare, it has St. Louis,
and it has Dallas/Fort Worth. So I think the monetary
incentives are so large, they cannot be done. We are talking
hundreds of millions of dollars to move large numbers of
employees to another locale, assuming that the infrastructure
is in place. But where the carriers' adverse cost consequences
are great enough, then the carriers will make the decision that
they had better move because they are going to lose business to
other competitors. So those opportunities will develop.
One example is Columbus, Ohio. That has developed in the
last ten years as a hub. It was not a hub prior to that time.
So I think they are out of sync. It does not happen as fast as
perhaps we would like. But adverse consequences in the
marketplace seem to be pushing some of that to happen.
Mr. Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Controller Staffing
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Clyburn.
We want to wrap up here pretty quickly because the hour is
getting late. We have been here a long time and the room is
extremely hot, so we will begin to wind down here.
Mr. Carr, one of your commitments was to encourage the
hiring of additional controllers. Since the staffing level was
one part of a larger negotiated compromise, the collective
bargaining agreement signed by NATCA and the FAA three years
ago, would not what you are advocating lead to, or cause that
we open up other elements of that agreement? Could it?
Mr. Carr. Well actually what I am advocating is that we
take a really close look at our staffing numbers in terms not
only of the collective bargaining agreement, but in terms of
the coming wave of controller retirements, and in terms of the
additional stresses that are being placed upon the system. The
very fact that we are here indicates that things have changed
over the course of the last 36 months, and that agreement was
signed in mid 1998. Nobody contemplated in 1998 that we would
be adding 13 additional choke point sectors to the National
Airspace System. So we are advocating that we very closely
scrutinize our staffing requirements to ensure that we do not
find ourselves in the next five years where we found ourselves
20 years ago, which was about 12,000 people short.
Mr. Rogers. Is it safe to say or fair to say that there are
more controllers needed at the busiest airports that are
causing the delays?
Mr. Carr. I think that is probably a fair assessment.
What is really fair to say is wherever you add sectors in
order to offload some of this traffic or to accommodate choke
point sectors, you are going to require increases in staffing.
A controller is not made overnight. Someone hired today will be
a full performance level controller in about five years.
Controller Distribution
Mr. Rogers. Let me ask you this. Is it possible that we do
not need more total controllers, but perhaps to redistribute
that staff to the hot spots, to the places where the airports
are more busy than others?
Mr. Carr. It is possible that that could be a short term
solution that could be looked at, but I have to tell you, Mr.
Chairman, there are very few places in the system now that are
overstaffed. Actually the preponderance of the facilities that
we have are chronically understaffed.
Mr. Rogers. I can show you a whole bunch of airports that
do not have many flights these days. Since the advent of the
hub system a lot of the smaller airports like Columbia and
Lexington, Kentucky have a lot of dead time. So perhaps some of
those airports could lend some controllers to a Chicago or a
Denver or where we have a problem. Is that not a workable idea?
Mr. Carr. It is certainly worth exploration, although I
have to tell you, like I said, controllers are somewhat like
runways. They are not made overnight. A controller from
Columbia who goes to Chicago O'Hare will be greeted with
``Welcome aboard, trainee.'' And in the two to three years it
takes for the gentleman or young lady from Columbia to learn
the Chicago airspace and to ramp up to that traffic level----
Mr. Rogers. I understand that. Ms. Garvey, what do you
think?
Ms. Garvey. A couple of comments.
First, I think your point about reassessing is something we
are doing all the time. I will say I am not at all in favor of
reopening the contract. I do think that was an agreement and we
should stand by it. Having said that, I will point out, we are
actually in closer agreement with the controllers than it may
seem. We are hiring 600 this year, that is under the contract
and another 1,000 next year. I think it is really only around
2006 where we may differ a little bit as to what the projected
needs are. We will keep a very close watch on it, and we will
work closely with them. But I think our assessment of it today
is good, solid, and we will continue to monitor it.
Mr. Rogers. What about redistributing controllers?
Ms. Garvey. I think that is always a possibility. In fact
to some degree we have done that. John's point about when you
open a sector you really need new controllers is right. So
certainly whether or not you can reassign folks from one place
to another or redistribute work loads, I think that is what we
have to do.
Mr. Rogers. Do you have a list of the airports that are
short of controllers at this time? That need controllers?
Ms. Garvey. I do not have it with me, but I am certain that
we can provide that for the record.
Mr. Rogers. If you can provide that for us. And do you have
also a list of the airports that perhaps could spare, give up a
controller or two?
Ms. Garvey. We can certainly provide you a staffing list, a
list of all of those airports. Also, what we see as the
anticipated retirements and where we see some challenges ahead.
Mr. Rogers. You should have that in your files right away,
we can get that right away----
Ms. Garvey. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Before our next get together.
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely, sir.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mandatory Controller Retirement
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Mead.
Mr. Mead. I would just like to supplement what Mr. Carr
said. I think that when they are analyzing the number of
controllers they need there are factors in addition to the
redistribution that you alluded to. We need to explain why
there is an age 56 mandatory retirement. We let pilots fly
until 60. There is a large body that think they should be
flying longer than that. And we do have now an age 56 mandatory
retirement for controllers.
Another factor is the contract tower program, which this
committee has been funding. Another one is Oceanic Air Traffic
Control. Another one is facility consolidation. All of those
factors provide some room for productivity gains and should be
factored into any review of how many controllers we need.
Free Flight Phase 2
Mr. Rogers. Now Mr. Woerth, one of your commitments was to
develop a single list of aviation needs from the aviation
industry. I did not see that list and I did not see it in your
statement. Can you help us with that?
Mr. Woerth. What I was referring to, sir, is working with
the Free Flight Steering Committee because ALPA's list might be
different than the airlines' list or the controllers' list.
What we are trying to do in the Free Flight Steering Committee
is build that consensus, and since I am a Free Flight Steering
Committee member I am striving, so if we bring the Congress one
set of criteria we need, not 27 programs. One program with one
funding requirement. So I am working on that committee and
participating in every level.
Mr. Rogers. When will we have that?
Mr. Woerth. Again, when the Free Flight Steering Committee,
and Jane can probably answer that even better than I, when we
expect the next level two to come out, which is Free Flight
Steering Committee number two.
Ms. Garvey. Assignments seem to be more mine. I wonder
about that, Mr. Chairman. There are really two, I think,
important points. One is in terms of Free Flight Phase 2. We
have a set of recommendations from the RTCA that Mr. Woerth
referred to. We are doing an assessment of that now. That is
going to be finished by the end of this month. Just to make
sure that we have both the capabilities in-house and
understanding what the resources are and how that matches with
our budget. So that is going to be done. The technology
challenges will be done at the end of May. But I think even
more importantly is the NAS Operations Evolution Plan. Again,
Mr. Woerth is part of that effort as well. Making sure that we
have industry and all elements of the industry really signed on
to that operation plan.
alpa delay commitment
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Woerth, you just got rid of one of your
commitments here.
Mr. Woerth. I am a good negotiator, Mr. Chairman.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Rogers. I am too----
[Laughter.]
Ms. Garvey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Never negotiate with the chairman.
Mr. Carr. He can have one of mine.
Mr. Rogers. No, we need to think about another commitment
for Mr. Woerth, so I will come back to you in a minute. You be
thinking about what you are going to promise us here in place
of the one that Jane Garvey is going to take care of for you.
Mr. Carr. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
controller relocation
Mr. Carr. If I could, I would like to clarify my earlier
remark about moving people within the system. To the extent
that there are opportunities for advancement at the busier
level facilities, and to the extent that there are facility
consolidation issues that we can work on, we are well in favor
of that. We also recognize the responsibility to provide the
necessary resources for permanent change of station moves and
things of that nature. I just do not want to give the
impression that we advocate a forced relocation of controllers
from lower level facilities to higher level facilities in order
to try to attempt to mitigate traffic growth problems. Most of
the larger level facilities right now currently run between a
50 and a 75 percent wash-out rate as it is. So out of any given
100 people you send to Chicago O'Hare, 75 of them are going
back home. It is just not that easy a game at the big
facilities. So to the extent that we provide promotion
opportunities for people who are currently in the system and
wish to go to the busier facilities, we are all in favor of
that.
denied boarding compensation
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis, one of your commitments is to
petition DOT to change the denied boarding compensation pool. I
understand you did petition on April 3rd. But I wonder what
relevance or effect that might have on reducing airline monies,
if any. I want to give credit for achieving the goal, but I am
wondering if it has anything to do with the delay problem.
Mr. Merlis. I think the way the question was framed, as I
said before, I was answering on the fly, sir, and that was one
of the things that came to mind that was responsive to
something that Mr. Mead had said and we committed to doing
that. What that can do because of delays and people getting
bumped is compensate people for their losses or their delay. So
we petitioned because the compensation rate is an old number.
Does it solve the delay problem? No, it does not. But it is
responsive to one of the problems related to delays.
passenger facility charge cap
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Barclay, we have timed these hearings to
ensure that the commitments we are working on are doable and
realistic. One of yours is to work to lift the cap on passenger
facility charges. That may be desirable for the airport
community. I wonder if it is a really practical and doable goal
since we just raised it a year ago. I wonder if you would be
thinking about another substitute commitment that we could
place in place of that unrealistic commitment that was made.
Will you be thinking about that?
Mr. Barclay. Will do, Mr. Chairman. We did narrow that
point in the effort to be responsive in advance of your point.
Just making a waiver at only the biggest airports. But I will
come up with a substitute.
impact of weather technology on delays
Mr. Rogers. All right. And Mr. Carr, when Secretary Mineta
appeared here on April 25th, in his testimony he suggested that
controllers may be over-sensitive to the new weather radar
displays that came on line I guess in 1998. And perhaps may be
unnecessarily routing aircraft around modestly bad weather. You
have controlled traffic for a long time yourself.
Mr. Carr. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. And you represent the work force of traffic
controllers. What is your opinion of that?
Mr. Carr. I am anxious to sit down and have a conversation
with the Secretary to really set out exactly what circumstances
he was alluding to. And until I have an opportunity to see
exactly what it was he was alluding to and where he got his
data points, I probably would be hesitant to answer that
question with any specificity.
However I can tell you that as a line air traffic
controller it is a far far greater thing I do to delay you five
minutes too long, than one minute too few when we are talking
about weather.
Mr. Rogers. As I recollect, he had a chart that he showed
that I think was depicting weather-related delays. And it was a
fairly stable figure until 1998, and all of a sudden there was
this huge updraft in numbers of weather-related delays during
1998. And he was saying that is when we brought on the
equipment that displayed on the controllers' screens the very
latest colored radar displays of weather.
Mr. Carr. I am uncertain whether the increase in 1998 was a
result of the displays and the better display of the weather,
or whether it was a result of better reporting techniques by
the FAA and the Secretary with respect to weather-related
delays.
Mr. Rogers. Do you think that is right or wrong?
Mr. Carr. To be honest with you, Mr. Chairman, until I saw
exactly what it was he was alluding to I would be hesitant to
reply with any specificity. I would tell you that I am proud to
say that controllers are extraordinarily cautious around
defective weather, and I think it is prudent.
Mr. Rogers. And we want that to be so. But there is such a
thing as being perhaps too cautious.
Mr. Carr. Absolutely. And to the extent that we want to
find that finite line between being cautious and being over-
cautious, we are here to participate. We are here to be
solution oriented.
antitrust immunity
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Barclay, your commitment, your substitute
commitment that you are----
Mr. Barclay. First, Mr. Chairman, I cannot resist stating
for the record that I had six commitments, and kicking this one
out put me only down to five. But to continue to have six,
there is--the issue of antitrust immunity and some of the
nervousness about those proposals was noted by Mr. Mead, and I
think that nervousness and the different views are shared by
people in the airport industry. But there is one element of
that that has been brought up by Don Carty of American that I
would like to go to our board and see if I cannot get airport
community support for the notion that when you have a
disruption in the system, really I think the frustration that
we are all feeling comes about in particular when Chicago has a
thunderstorm roll through and it causes massive delays
throughout the system. In those cases, because the airlines do
not have antitrust immunity, they cannot sit down and American
and United cannot work together to straighten out that problem
at Chicago. Say I will cancel these two if you will cancel
those two, and we will still be serving that market.
Working with FAA, the carriers could cooperate--not
antitrust immunity in general, but in specific where FAA would
call for it that day because of a problem in the air traffic
control system, to allow the airlines to have that immunity
with an FAA observer or listener on the phone, could really
help the system straighten out this problem when it gets into
one of these massive problems.
I want to go and see if I cannot get--even though we have a
number of members who when you say antitrust immunity get very
nervous about providing that in that blanket sense, I would
like to see if we cannot get airport support from our board to
go and help champion that with the airlines.
Mr. Rogers. Any other comments from the table?
Ms. Garvey. I would support that heartily. I think those
really are the tough days. If there is a way to surgically
focus the antitrust discussions, I think we could go a long way
in addressing some of the concerns that Mr. Mead has mentioned.
Mr. Rogers. Who would trigger that exemption taking place?
Mr. Barclay. I think FAA would. The air traffic control
folks.
Mr. Rogers. You are talking about a weather problem that
threatens to disrupt national patterns.
Mr. Barclay. Or a strike that occurs that affects an
individual airport. Any major disruption of the system as
judged by the FAA that is having an air traffic control impact
rippling around the system for the purpose of recovering for
just that day. Let us not allow the antitrust laws to get in
the way of solving real life problems today in getting the
system back on track.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Merlis, what do you think?
Mr. Merlis. I would not want to get into that strike issue,
but I think Mr. Barclay is absolutely right. The mechanism is
this process out at Herndon. We know during the course of the
day--let us take an example. Chicago is going to have to reduce
its flights by 25 percent at a particular point during the day
because of adverse weather. If the carriers who are flying
during that point, 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. could get together and
decide how to serve the maximum number of customers. American
pulls down its flight to Newark, and Continental goes ahead and
picks up all those people and gets them to Newark. That is the
kind of thing that will serve the most number of people, and I
think do least damage to the concerns people have about
competition.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Carr, do you have a thought about that?
Mr. Carr. I tend to agree. Without even speaking any more
extemporaneously than that, I tend to agree.
proposed antitrust immunity scheduling conference
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Woerth.
Mr. Woerth. I think they are talking more about a crisis
management situation where day by day somebody decides they
have a crisis. It could be a thunderstorm, it could be a snow
storm, it could be something. I support those efforts. But I
think it will not go far enough. I heard the concerns that some
people have about antitrust immunity, but over a year ago I
wrote letters to then Secretary Slater and proposed these
scheduling conferences that were proposed or talked about
earlier from Mr. Sweeney and by the Inspector General. And over
a year ago ALPA was in support of that. We think we can manage
a crisis, but it is easier to manage a crisis if you plan
enough so there are fewer crises at the airports.
I still think that the antitrust scheduling conferences
should be pursued, and since there are two bills in Congress
with bipartisan support and ALPA suggested it in the first
place, I can add my duties to continue to support that project
because I think it is worth doing. I think the antitrust
concerns can be eliminated, especially if we do not talk city
pairs--in other words, competitive city pairs--and stop talking
prices. But why I think this will work and why it should be
pursued despite some other concerns, I certainly think it is
better than peak hour pricing. But here is what I think----
Mr. Rogers. What is better?
Mr. Woerth. The antitrust immunity scheduling conferences
will produce a better consumer result. The big airlines are
competing with their hubs. The big carriers, whether you are
competing for passengers in a catchment area you are going to
use St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit/
Minneapolis.
What works in competition is frequency. Frequency is what
is killing us with air traffic delays. We have learned to
compete with more and more airplanes that are smaller. So our
efficiency, as Mr. Sweeney asked earlier, is going down. But
the strategy that works is high frequency. There is not a
single airline that does not know if they want to win the high
yield business customer who has fully refundable tickets who
wants to change his mind all the time, that customer prefers
the maximum number of options. If he misses a meeting, gets off
early, wants to go home, whatever it is. So what they need to
do is discuss about--say you are trying to go to LaGuardia.
Whether you are competing out of St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit or
Pittsburgh, you all want to have 10 flights a day to compete
for those passengers into LaGuardia. But we all know we are
going to have the same number of seats, just change the gauge
on a few airplanes that we can take out, we all go to seven
flights a day. But as I mentioned before, not one of those
competitors is going to do that unless he knows everybody else
is going to do the same thing. You can have the same number of
seats in the market, just fewer flights, but they are not going
to give up competitive frequency unless they know everybody
else is. So I think this should be pursued.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Barclay, you are going to work to gain
industry-wide unanimity around the language?
Mr. Barclay. I can try to get airport industry support
around the language. The airlines are already in support of it,
and FAA said it supported the thing. So I think it is a
doable----
Mr. Rogers. Okay. That is your project and we would like to
see your language as soon as we could. Is that agreeable?
Mr. Barclay. Yes, sir.
PROPOSED ANTITRUST IMMUNITY SCHEDULING CONFERENCE
Mr. Rogers. Now, Mr. Woerth, your substitute commitment.
Mr. Woerth. Along those lines, Mr. Chairman, I would like
to support the broader one, not the crisis management that Chip
supported, but ALPA will lend its support to both bills in
Congress to get them passed that will give antitrust immunity
to scheduling conferences for the airlines.
I represent 49 airlines, so I do not have an ax to grind
with any one particular. I grind all their axes fairly
frequently. [Laughter.]
Mr. Rogers. Well, we will take it but it is sort of a
general commitment. We will never know whether you have done it
or not.
Mr. Woerth. If the Chairman asks me to testify, I will be
there.
ALPA DELAY COMMITMENT
Mr. Rogers. I know that. But I am just saying I wish we
could have a specific commitment from you other than generally
to lobby for something.
Mr. Woerth. I think that one provides the most--that comes
to mind that can actually be done, and along with the one we
kind of abandoned that I tried to shift to Ms. Garvey, the Free
Flight Steering Committee is far from complete. And the work on
that even to get to phase two and have all the industry
technology compatible with the aircraft as well as the pilot
training, this work is ongoing and I will continue to work with
that.
We have human factors--if we have a machine that people are
trained on that is not compatible with the air traffic
controllers, we have nothing. We will work to coordinate that,
which is still part of what we were talking about originally
with number one.
AIRLINE DELAY SOLUTIONS REPORT CARD
Mr. Rogers. Okay. I thank you for your appearance here
today again. It has been a long afternoon. I apologize for the
length, but I do not think we can achieve what we are after
unless we dig into the details as we had to today and have
done. Does anybody have a closing statement before we wrap up
here? If not, then we will proceed.
We are making some progress. We heard some specifics along
the way here of achievements that pose some real promise for
us. We are going to blow up Mr. Mead's graph and put it perhaps
up here so we can have a thermometer to look at and see whether
or not delays temperature is coming down or going up. And we
are going to look to him and the FAA for those measurements of
the delay situation for April, May and of course the summer
months.
So we will be coming back. You are invited back and we are
going to keep working on these commitments that have been made
and that you are working on. Some of them are pretty much in
place. Many others of them, of course, are works in progress.
And some of them are sort of etherial promises that we will
never really be able to objectively put a yardstick to.
But I think this is productive, as far as I am concerned. I
think we are beginning to understand from each other the
problem and trying to foster some degree of cooperation where
sometimes I think it has been lacking.
Consequently, it is time to issue some grades here. I told
you that we were going to have a report card, and we have the
report card on the chart behind me here, so we are going to go
through it, and with Rich's help we will do some work on that
chart.
First, Ms. Garvey, you have completed the choke point
initiative and--well, it is practically complete, so we are
going to give you a smiley face.
Ms. Garvey. Excellent.
CAPACITY BENCHMARKS
Mr. Rogers. And you have issued the capacity benchmarks,
and you have developed plans at the eight airports to improve
operational efficiency. The ones with the highest delay rates--
Atlanta, Boston, Chicago O'Hare, Newark New York, Kennedy New
York, LaGuardia, and Philadelphia and San Francisco.
Ms. Garvey. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Rogers. So for that you get another star.
Ms. Garvey. Excellent.
DELAY DEFINITION, ENVIRONMENTAL STREAMLINING, AIRPORT CAPACITY PROJECTS
Mr. Rogers. Now you have already been awarded a star for
your sixth commitment, number six, which is to develop the
definition of a delay. You have informed us of that some three
weeks ago. We have already given you a star for that.
Now for your agreement with airlines on a national
operations evolution plan, that is a work in progress, but you
are making progress, and for that another smiley face.
For number five, streamlining the approval procedures for
airport capacity projects, in your testimony you elucidated the
progress you are making on that. It is a work in progress. We
are making progress. And for that another smiley face. So thank
you. You are doing good.
Mr. Mead is difficult to measure because he is sort of
measuring us all anyway. [Laughter.]
He is the guy with the yardstick. We are trying to measure
him.
But for his work in keeping track of the disbursals of
flights that we are trying to force or encourage from hubs to
smaller airports and for disbursal of flights during the day at
certain airports, particularly Atlanta and Dallas/Fort Worth,
he gets a smiley face, work in progress. And monitoring the
runway construction cost and schedule status, another smiley
face.
Mr. Merlis, you completed, I think, your commitment on
number five which is to petition the DOT to change the denied
boarding compensation rules. We are going to give you a golden
star. And you are working on putting in place the delay
reporting advisory committee, you have a ways to go, but work
in progress, smiley face. Your number three commitment, to
transfer aircraft position and delay data directly to gate
agents, work in progress. We will see how it works but you are
headed that way so a smiley face.
Mr. Barclay, your advocacy of streamlining the runway
construction process, you are building a head of steam I think
in that direction. We give you a smiley face, work in progress.
Number two, your advocacy of FAA's ability to provide support
staff to airports is a positive note in the right direction, a
work in progress, a smiley face.
And Captain Woerth, you are developing a stronger alliance
with the NATCA. You have a meeting on the 18th of this month
with members of both NATCA and the dispatchers. And you are
working on standardizing flying duty time industry wide, among
other things. We give you a smiley face.
Mr. Carr, you have reached agreement with the FAA on air
space redesign which is I think a major step in the right
direction. We have got a ways to go to see what finally
happens, but for your commitment to reach that commitment you
get a star.
Mr. Carr. Excellent. [Laughter.]
Mr. Rogers. Do not get too happy. [Laughter.]
Mr. Carr. I know at least three people that are jealous of
me. I hope this room is guarded overnight.
Mr. Rogers. And your work in monitoring other ideas for the
safety impact, we have to give you a smiley face.
And your initiation of a study with others of the ability
to reduce separation standards which could make major
differences in delays earns you a smiley face. All of these
smiley face things are works in progress, and if you can
complete them, we will replace that smiley face with a star.
All of this to say that you are competing with each other to
get out of this room. To get off the island, so to speak. And
we are not going to let you off the island until you have
earned your stripes, your stars. So that may be a little
elementary way to do this, but so what. We can have a little
fun.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Closing
Mr. Rogers. There is a lot of work that we are heading into
here. As I said at the outset, with your help we want to help
end the terrible disruption that airline delays are causing
millions of Americans.
I know all of you and I know all of your organizations,
private and public, are committed to public service and we
congratulate you for that. So are we.
Our duty is to try to protect the public's interest and the
pubic's interest is not being served adequately at this time by
the system. So we are joining with you to try to remedy the
faults and the problems as best we can.
We know that you have been swamped, the air industry has
been swamped with flyers in the last several years. Literally
hundreds of millions a year now are flying where just a few
years ago only a few million. So we know that this is a dynamic
industry. You have a dynamic demand. We want to help you along
that way.
We are going to insist that these things be done, or as I
said before, there will be consequences that will come from
this subcommittee, perhaps, or from some other place. But we
will be staying with you on this and we will be having another
session such as this in the near future to check up on the
progress that you have made on your commitments.
I hope you find this useful. If you do not,
congratulations. But I hope that you find this useful because
sometimes it may be that you or your organization may not be
able to take the initiative on something unless you are made
to. And I hope that we have some effect on encouraging you to
do things that will benefit the whole group. So I thank you for
your time and your work, and we will see you very soon.
The hearing is adjourned.
Thursday, August 2, 2001.
AIRLINE DELAYS AND AVIATION SYSTEM CAPACITY
WITNESSES
MICHAEL P. JACKSON, DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
JANE F. GARVEY, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
KENNETH M. MEAD, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
EDWARD A. MERLIS, SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, LEGISLATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION
CHARLES BARCLAY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF AIRPORT EXECUTIVES
CAPTAIN DENNIS DOLAN, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT, AIR LINE PILOTS
ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL
JOHN S. CARR, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION
Opening Remarks and Introduction of Witnesses
Mr. Rogers. The Committee will be in order.
We want to welcome back once again the infamous gang of
six, now seven and growing. All are here; one substitute.
Captain Dennis Dolan of the Air Line Pilots Association is
sitting in for ALPA president Captain Duane Woerth, who could
not attend today. I am very sorry he could not be here because
I think it is very important that the people who make promises
be the ones who keep the promises, so extend to him our
personal regret.
Mr. Dolan. I will.
Mr. Rogers. Most importantly, I want to offer a special
welcome to the Deputy Secretary of Transportation, the
Honorable Michael Jackson, for the first time before this
committee; maybe the first of many appearances. He is here
representing Secretary Mineta and is responsible in his own
right for all of the important activities being undertaken by
the Department as it relates to airline delays. He is the man.
He is called Mr. Airline Delay.
purpose of delay hearings
We started this series of special hearings, as you know, on
March 15 when it became obvious that the nation was laboring
under a terrible burden of airline delays. At that time, we
asked these prominent professionals in the aviation industry to
commit to five concrete and measurable things that they would
personally attend to to help address the growing problem of
airline delays. That was a new approach--personal commitment,
personal accountability, cooperation across the board of this
industry and its various parts.
We put those commitments on a big board, as you see behind
us, and when Secretary Mineta appeared on April 25 for his
budget appearance he graciously agreed to add his name and
commitments to our list, which I think was a great endorsement
and aid to the work that we are trying to accomplish here.
One week after the Secretary's hearing, on May 3, we had
our second special hearing where we checked what progress was
being made on those commitments. Although it had been too short
a time to see broad progress at that time, we awarded stars for
a few completed items, smiley faces in those areas where
concrete progress was being made. We withheld the frowny faces,
but they are in a box that has an open lid. Although it may
seem frivolous to award stars and frowny or smiley faces, it is
a way of us judging and rewarding or punishing, as the case may
be, progress, or lack of it, that is being made.
Now an additional 12 weeks have passed since the last
hearing, and we are well into the peak travel season. If we do
not see any real progress by now, we are missing the short-term
opportunities and focusing only on long-term improvements. We
need to do both, and I hope we will hear today that progress is
being made on both fronts.
As Mr. Mead said in our last hearing and came up with this
phrase, the proof will be in the pudding. I thought that was so
unique. We are here today to check that pudding and see what
the temperature is and see what proof is there from our
experts.
fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill
I should also point out that in the three months since our
last hearing my Subcommittee has reported the transportation
appropriations bill for fiscal year 2002, and we have made the
airline delay matter a priority. We fully funded those programs
targeted by the Administration to address delays, such as the
chokepoints initiative and the Free Flight project.
We added money to speed up some technologies, such as the
local area augmentation system and Safe Flight 21. We added
money to redesign the crowded airspace around the New York
metropolitan region and to see if we cannot safely reduce the
aircraft separation standards. Overall, we raised funding for
ATC modernization by ten percent and the airport construction
program by five percent. There will be more money next year,
and we have targeted it to address the delay problem.
report card on commitments
Once again today we are here to provide a report card on
your progress. FAA Administrator Garvey and Inspector General
Mead have personally briefed me on the recent improvements in
airline delays. I have appreciated that and look forward to
hearing more details today.
My sense is that there is still a long way to go. We have
made marginal improvement in the problem. We cannot rest on
those laurels. They are not big enough to see hardly. The
airline delay problem continues to be one of the most serious
problems facing the American traveling public, affecting
millions of people every month, every week.
Even with these improvements, one in every five flights is
still delayed. The average delay is still too high. We have
only seen marginal improvements and a shortening of the length
of delays, and there are still too many chronically delayed
flights. Much more can be done to promote the use of under used
airports.
In short, we have a system which, while improved, is not
serving the American public like it should. We also need to
ensure that improvements are due to structural causes, not due
to one-time events or improvements in the weather, as we have
seen this year. If we have bad weather next year or the economy
bounces back and we see more travelers, we must not find
ourselves in the same situation we have been in regarding
delays and cancellations. The American public will not tolerate
it, and they will not let it go back.
I appreciate the fact that you have all but one returned
today, and I await your progress reports. We will enter your
written statements in the record without objection.
Before we take further proceedings, let me first recognize
my colleague from Minnesota, Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome all our
witnesses back and look forward to hearing their testimony.
Mr. Rogers. We have two votes on the Floor we are being
called to. Rather than start the proceedings and then be
interrupted, I think it best that we take a couple of minutes
here and get our chores out of the way before we get started.
Make yourselves comfortable while we are in recess for a few
minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Rogers. The Committee will be in order.
Thank you for your patience with us. This is we hope the
last day before the August recess, and we are trying to pack a
lot onto the Floor, as well as in our committees.
Any other statements, Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. No.
Mr. Rogers. Chairman Wolf.
Mr. Wolf. No.
Mr. Rogers. We are glad to have you here, by the way.
Mrs. Emerson.
Mrs. Emerson. No.
deputy secretary opening statement
Mr. Rogers. Now we would love to hear your abbreviated
opening statements.
Deputy Secretary Jackson, we will ask you to go first.
Welcome.
Mr. Jackson. Chairman Rogers, thank you for having me at
the meeting today. Ranking Member Sabo, Chairman Wolf, Members
of the subcommittee, I am grateful to be here. I will make my
remarks brief and then assume that we can have an opportunity
for questions to elaborate upon them.
I really wanted to do three things in my prepared remarks.
First, to discuss the Department's basic strategy for dealing
with aviation congestion issues and a nested set of additional
issues related to the health of the aviation industry. Second,
to give you a brief overview of some of the interim steps that
Secretary Mineta has taken in the last several months to
address these issues, particularly on aviation delays. Third,
to just touch base briefly, Mr. Chairman, on the specific
points and commitments that the Secretary had signed up for
with you earlier this year.
First of all, I think the issue of delays has been a
continuous concern in the Secretary's comments and my comments
as we talk about the problems we face in aviation. Mr.
Chairman, I associate myself completely with your analysis of
where we are. We have made some progress. It is important
progress, but it is not enough. We have very much more to do.
We are at the beginning of a long path, but we have to work at
it hard and show results, so I think that your assessment is
exactly on track.
transportation delay work group
It is important to understand that we have had some
progress in the short term over the last several months to work
through the summer and spring peak seasons, and there are a
series of efforts that we have set in motion, including a
working group that we have established at the Department. I am
chairing that group with Administrator Garvey, with our
Inspector General and a series of other senior officials in the
Department to manage these important issues on an ongoing
basis, which we will have to do for the entire time that I am
sitting in my chair at the Department.
delay improvements
I think over the short term that we can see that on almost
every one of the metrics that you are going to hear about from
this group today, there has been progress. For on-time
performance we have seen 19 percent improvement. You will hear
about significant improvement on the reduction in ground stops.
Similarly, through all of the FAA numbers we see incremental,
but measurable, progress. Is it enough? No. Is it a start? Yes.
Is it noticeable in the system today? I think the answer to
that is yes also.
There are three real reasons that we think that we have
seen some of this incremental and meaningful improvement. First
is the weather. I am not saying that weather has gotten better.
It has marginally been better this year than last.
I think importantly here for you and the work that your
committee is asking us to look at is this question. What have
we done to make management of bad weather a more effective
process? It is on that axis that I think we have made some
significant progress. The work that Herndon is doing to talk to
the airlines on a routine basis throughout the day has been
meaningful.
I was in Atlanta earlier this week talking to the
operations people at Delta about collaborative decision making
because I wanted to hear from them directly how they thought it
had worked. One individual there had spent two months on the
road with FAA going around to TRACONs and talking about how to
manage these things. He was back on their daily conference call
talking about the processes they were going to use on Tuesday
afternoon at 2:45 to make that work.
On that score, I think we have been doing better about
managing weather. Jane has talked about this with you, but I
think that we have more to do, although we have made some
progress there.
labor/management impact
Second, when we were looking at this at the beginning of
the year, we were looking at a potentially very, very difficult
summer. One of the elements of that difficult summer was the
possibility of significant labor/management conflict and
resultant delays.
That is a priority that the Secretary took on personally. I
have assisted him in that regard in a marginal way perhaps, but
it is something that he has spent a lot of time and energy on,
each of the particular labor issues that we have had.
The parties themselves have made the difference and have
made the commitment to do this. I think they understood very
well the impact of not getting this done. OMB has worked
effectively. We brought the Comair people in when that
negotiation went to a dead stop, and I think we made some
progress there. On the labor issues, it is the one that is an
outlier. It could have been worse, but I think that we have
made a little progress there.
summer operations plan
Finally, I think that this whole Summer Ops Plan has paid
dividends for us in the short term, and I will let
Administrator Garvey talk about that.
I would just touch briefly on the commitments that we
signed up for with the Secretary and some of the work that we
have done to try to make that a priority for us at the
Department. We worked to establish a process on balancing
flight schedules. The work at LaGuardia that you are very well
aware of, Mr. Chairman, is very important in this regard, as is
our capacity benchmark study, our NPRM that we have released on
management options, and better consumer information.
These are areas that we have begun to dig into. The task
force that we are working on has laid out a series of
additional actions, but I think we have begun to make
significant progress. My prepared remarks discuss this in more
detail.
Airport permitting and construction. I am absolutely
unhappy with how long it takes us to do any large
transportation project. This is a significant area for us to
work on. It is something also that cannot be just tackled at
the Department of Transportation.
The Secretary and I have had conversations with the
Domestic Policy Counsel, with OMB, with other Cabinet agencies
about how we can collectively work on these problems. We cannot
just make transportation infrastructure investments. We can be
an aid to local communities as they decide what is appropriate
for their community. We can also help clear out the underbrush
of impediments when a community does decide to move in a
particular direction, and we are committed to try to work on
those. I think we have made some very good progress so far on
that.
Chokepoint work. I think that the Administrator's comments
again will summarize the work that she and the Department have
done collectively in this area, and I believe we have made some
real progress on realigning some of the chokepoint problems for
this year. It is also something that we have to do on an
ongoing basis and keep addressing.
Underutilized airports. Secretary Mineta has said
repeatedly as he travels around the country that there are
assets that are under utilized. We want to be helpful in making
these under utilized assets a part of the airspace network and
to help us drain off some of the delay issues. We have worked
with the industry and several communities to address options
for them to move forward.
Finally, on developing incentives and disincentives for
airlines, we are earnestly encouraging the type of voluntary
actions that Delta, American and Continental have taken on
their own nickel, but with our encouragement and help, to make
meaningful changes on adjusting the peaks and valleys of asset
utilization at airports.
I visited Delta and the FAA's TRACON and tower in Atlanta
this week, and there has been a very, very substantial change
there. Our air traffic controllers say that it was like turning
a switch when Delta made these changes in their traffic
patterns, and it has made an important difference I think, so
we are encouraging that type of continued work with the
airlines.
In conclusion, I would just say that these are early steps
for us. The commitment to work on the problems this committee
is looking at today is a full-time commitment for us for the
long haul. We are trying to organize ourselves to look at
short-term medium-term and long-term solutions, and on each
axis the Department and the airlines and airports have to
contribute to these solutions and to work on these problems
collectively.
Finger pointing will not accomplish a thing. We want to
work in partnership with the groups represented at this table
and the affected parties. We appreciate the support and the
focus that this subcommittee is bringing to these issues. That
is very constructive.
There is no magic wand, Mr. Chairman. My six-year-old
daughter has a magic wand in her Barbie set. I looked in my
toolbox when I got to DOT, and there is not one there, but we
will continue to work all the tools that we have effectively
here and hope to make real progress.
I am happy to answer questions about the Department's work
as we go through the day.
[The prepared statement and biography of Michael Jackson
follows:]
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ATLANTA AIRPORT
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
I applaud, like you, Delta and American and Continental for
de-peaking their major hub airport. Essentially they are the
dominant airline at each of those airports and can do that and
be effective at it. It is these multi-hub airports that we have
had difficulty with.
Even in spite of Atlanta de-peaking, it still leads, in my
latest statistics, the nation in the percent of the total
delays nationwide. Atlanta still accounts for 8.2 percent, even
above Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, LaGuardia,
Boston, San Francisco and JFK, still Atlanta after de-peaking.
Mr. Jackson. It is our busiest airport, and we have not
nailed it with this one action. It is an action that can help
us, but not alone.
Mr. Rogers. I am glad the air traffic controllers say it is
like throwing a switch, but there should be some more switches
out there to throw.
Mr. Jackson. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. Atlanta still is bad news.
Mr. Jackson. Absolutely. Hopefully that runway extension
will help that. We have an important priority to move that one
in Atlanta. I think that will significantly help when they can
get there, but that again is a longer term solution. We are not
going to give up on intermediate and short-term solutions that
might improve the situation as well.
FAA Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Ms. Garvey.
Ms. Garvey. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Sabo, Members of
the Committee, thank you very much. I am pleased to be here
this morning to report on our progress to date.
As the Deputy Secretary indicated and as you indicated, Mr.
Chairman, in your comments, the news this year is definitely
more favorable. If you look at the last four months, we are
seeing a decrease, about a ten percent decrease in delays. That
certainly is good news. I looked yesterday at the preliminary
numbers for July, and it seems as though those numbers are
heading in the same positive direction.
FAA Progress on Commitments
Before each of you, Mr. Chairman, is a package that
outlines the commitments that we made at our initial hearing,
the milestones we have set and the progress to date. I am
pleased to say that under the direction of the Secretary and
Deputy Secretary we continue to make progress, but in the
interest of time what I would like to do is focus on just three
of those commitments and speak more specifically about some of
the benefits that we are seeing because I think that is
important. Ultimately we want to see changes, and we want to
see some benefits, benefits both to the passengers and to the
airlines.
FREE FLIGHT PHASE I
If we start with our Commitment No. 3, which is implement
Free Flight Phase 1, these are, as I think the committee knows,
essentially five automation tools, five software programs, that
are used by the controllers. The program, I am very delighted
to say, is on budget and on track with a lot of help from this
committee. We are enormously grateful for the commitment that
we have received from this committee for Free Flight. We have a
very straightforward agreement with industry. It is quite
simply we will deploy the technology. Industry will measure the
results.
Is it giving us what we want? The airlines are telling us
some very good news. In some cases, the airlines have said they
have been able to avoid three to five costly diversions a week.
They have been able in some cases to sequence arrival traffic
much more efficiently, thereby increasing capacity.
Another tool gives the controller the ability to see
potential conflicts 20 minutes ahead of time, allowing us to
provide much more direct routing for the aircraft. According to
one airline, this tool alone saved $1.5 million in the two
enroute centers where it is currently being used.
Because of the collaborative decision making software tool,
we have common shared data, such as weather and action plans,
among all the airlines in the Command Center. It allows us to
plan much more efficiently. It allows us to be on the same page
together. Free Flight is giving us some benefits. We are on
track, and I think it is going to be a good model to use as we
think of the Operational Evolution Plan (OEP).
CHOKEPOINTS
Chokepoints is another commitment for us. We have talked
about before this committee in the past. We have identified
with the airlines 21 initiatives to relieve those chokepoints.
As you may remember from our first discussion, we focused on
that very critical triangle from Chicago to Boston down to
Washington. In the very broadest sense, I would characterize
the initiative as making the most efficient use of the existing
airspace. We have completed work on 14 of those initiatives. We
still have some to go, but we are again on track.
Our initiatives are starting to pay off. Most of our
completed chokepoints initiatives have focused, not
surprisingly, around the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.
As a result, we have seen a reduction in delays from both
northbound and westbound departures out of those New York
airports. We have seen that they are experiencing 11 to 22
percent fewer unplanned ground stops when you compare it to the
year 2000.
We also in the last few months have focused more directly
on the Great Lakes region. We have changed some of the high
altitude holding patterns. That has led to great benefits for
airports such as Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit where
departure delays have been reduced by 11 percent and arrival
delays by 16 percent.
We are meeting our commitments on the chokepoints
initiative, but, I think even more significantly, we, along
with the airlines, are tracking the benefits. We really need to
know what works and what does not.
OPERATIONAL EVOLUTION PLAN (OEP)
For the longer term solution, as we have suggested in one
of our initiatives, we are focused on the Ops Evolution Plan. I
am pleased to say that we have met our commitment to this
committee to reach agreement with the airlines on a National
Operations Evolution Plan. With great support from the airlines
and a lot of encouragement from the Secretary of
Transportation, this plan was released on June 6.
The plan represents, as the committee knows, the commitment
of the industry, the commitment of the FAA, to a ten year
future. Our real challenge right now is to shift from the plan,
which we have now got, and we know what all our commitments
are, to really an implementation. That has been the major focus
for us and the airlines.
I just want to call your attention to one document. For
each one, for example, of the 14 runways that are planned we
have a detailed work plan. This is what I mean by shifting to
implementation. We have a detailed work plan that is going to
be up on our website in September, and it outlines very
specifically who is responsible for what part of that work
plan. I think that is going to be very helpful as we monitor
and track our own progress.
We believe, and the airlines agree with us, that
implementation of the Operational Evoluation Plan will lead to
an increase of capacity of about 30 percent. Again, that is
through technology, through airspace redesign, as well as
through new runways.
Just in conclusion, as you pointed out at our first
hearing, Mr. Chairman, everything that we have discussed or we
will discuss today really comes down to serving the customers,
serving the American people. We know, as the Deputy Secretary
has said, that we still have a long way to go.
We know that many of these initiatives considered in
isolation will not offer a solution, but we continue to
believe, as you have stated at the first hearing, that with the
kind of constructive collaboration that we are seeing, it is
unprecedented. The future certainly looks good, and we believe
we are on the right track.
Thank you again for allowing me to be here today.
[The prepared statement of Jane Garvey and status of
commitments follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Sub-Hub Airport Capacity Use
Mr. Rogers. Thank you for being here.
Are we making any progress on spreading capacity, using
under utilized capacity? Cincinnati is a great airport near
northern Kentucky, a wonderful place. Not too far away is the
Louisville Airport with lots of unused runways. Lexington is
just south of there. There are other airports in the region
that could help relieve Cincinnati. I use that only as an
example. The same thing is true in Atlanta, Dallas, San
Francisco and so forth. What are we doing to disburse the load
off of the hubs into the subhubs?
Ms. Garvey. Well, from the government's perspective, and
obviously the airlines will have a different view and perhaps
may want to add other comments, but from our perspective I
certainly continue to believe that the airport improvement
program and the monies that Congress has given in record
numbers is giving money for infrastructure development for the
airport system. It is very helpful.
We are trying at LaGuardia, as you know, with the lottery,
which is in a sense a kind of capping of those flights. We
certainly hope that there will be more of an incentive to try
some of those other airports; Stewart, for example, which I
know that Mr. Sweeney has been very interested in.
I think there is still a lot of work we need to do in that
area, and it is certainly still in a deregulated environment.
How much we can sort of force it from the government's
perspective is one of our great challenges. I think providing
the infrastructure and looking at some of those demand
management strategies that may in fact in crowded areas
encourage use of other airports, is important as well.
La Guardia Airport Lottery
Mr. Rogers. Well, by capping the number of flights at
LaGuardia in effect you are forcing----
Ms. Garvey. In a sense.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. Airlines to find alternative hubs
in the region, right?
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely, and I will say----
Mr. Rogers. Why can you not do that in other places?
Ms. Garvey. Well, I guess we always hoped that that was
something of last resort in a deregulated environment.
Mr. Rogers. We are fast approaching last resorts here.
Ms. Garvey. I do think in some of the other--you mentioned
Atlanta earlier. I do think in Atlanta we will when that runway
is in obviously see some great benefits there. There may be
other opportunities that some of the other panelists are seeing
as well.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we will have other questions in a few
minutes.
Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My understanding is in LaGuardia the slots by lottery
expire in September. Is that accurate? What happens then?
Ms. Garvey. It is, Congressman. We had a request for
comments in the Federal Register and have agreed to extend that
lottery for another year. There is great interest from Members
of Congress in that as well.
We will extend it for another year as we consider some of
the longer solutions. The longer term solutions are pretty
complicated. There are pros and cons on all sides. We want to
give people enough time to really look at those, and we will
extend the lottery for a year.
Inspector General Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. We will have plenty of time for questions as
soon as we hear the panel. I did not intend to start with
questions. I apologize.
Mr. Mead, the Inspector General, our resident critic, how
are we doing?
Mr. Mead. Somebody told me that you were going to call me
Pudding Man as a result of your comment earlier that I said the
proof was in the pudding, which I did say.
Mr. Rogers. The Pudding Man, yes.
Mr. Mead. Mr. Chairman and Members of the subcommittee, it
is good to be back again.
I would like to start by saying that I think that bringing
this group together periodically to review progress in
addressing the delay problem really has helped to focus
attention, accountability, and greater cooperation among the
parties. That is just from our own audit observations. It has
contributed I think materially, along with the emphasis that
has been provided by the Secretary, to some bottom line
results.
Progress on Delays
What I would like to do for a moment here is I would like
to report on where things stand today, some vital statistics,
if you will, and then turn to the commitments that were made
and highlight some areas that we believe require action.
There are charts throughout our testimony, and we have a
chart board that we can put up later to illustrate some of
these metrics, but there are just a few that I think are key
barometers. Comparing the first six months of 2001 to 2000:
arrival delays, down about 13 percent; cancellations, down 23
percent.
A key one, number of flights experiencing taxi out times of
one hour or more: down 20 percent. That is a big number. In the
two hour or more taxi out category, the decrease is really
large, about 48 percent compared to this time last year.
Flights chronically delayed and/or canceled 40 percent of
the time or more decreased 62 percent. I think the airlines are
paying attention to this category. There are still too many of
them, though. We have dropped from about 97,000 for the first
six months of 2000 to about 37,000 still out there. Consumer
complaints are down, too.
Scheduling Data
What about scheduling? Scheduling data, frankly, are very
mixed. You will recall that just a few short months ago we did
not have all these metrics to compare for the committee, so I
think that in itself is a fairly large improvement.
For the first 6 months of this year, there was less than a
one percent increase in scheduled flights by the top ten
carriers, which is a marked change from the last several years.
There were major differences among the carriers, though, and
among the airports: BWI--up 14 percent; Dulles--down 23
percent; Reagan National--up 13 percent; Cincinnati--down 13
percent; Chicago, Atlanta, and DFW all down slightly by a
percentage point or two.
Growth that did occur tended to be in the use of small
aircraft, so-called regional jets. Frankly, there was very
little evidence of a dispersal of flights from major hubs to
smaller, less congested airports.
AVERAGE LOAD FACTORS
Although load factors--the percentage of passenger seats
filled--are down overall about four percent, but there was a
pronounced drop in the business travel market. While overall
the load factor is down about four percent, business travel is
down about 15 percent as measured by revenue passenger miles.
Why are delays down? I think Mr. Jackson and Ms. Garvey
referred to it: better weather, particularly in the eastern
U.S.; no significant labor disruptions--I think the Secretary,
the airlines, and the unions all deserve some credit for that;
FAA and airline efforts to better communicate and coordinate
actions; voluntary actions by several of the airlines,
particularly through more responsible scheduling; and general
economic conditions that have constrained growth in demand.
It is sort of a double edged sword here, you might say.
While these delay statistics look favorable, we must not be
lured into a false sense of security. Any of these previously
noted factors could change even this year so that we could
relive the summer of 2000 or worse.
COMMITMENTS AND PROGRESS
With that in mind, I would like to turn to the commitments
and what progress has occurred. DOT and FAA, in our judgement,
do continue to make progress. The most significant items we
think are FAA's Operational Evolution Plan, the report to
Congress on environmental review of airport improvement
projects and, airlines actually moving their voluntary customer
commitments into their contracts of carriage, making them
legally enforceable.
There are six items for which we feel progress has been
insufficient or actions are needed sooner rather than later.
First, DOT still lacks a uniform system for tracking the causes
of flight delays and cancellations. Some progress has been
made. We had hoped, though, that a system would be in place by
this summer. DOT expects additional airlines to begin voluntary
reporting of causal data before the end of this year and plans
to do an expedited, negotiated rulemaking to make reporting on
the causes of delays obligatory.
You will remember, and I am sure every Member of this
committee remembers, when this all started. You would get the
airlines and FAA in the room and everybody would have a
different reason for why a particular delay was happening. It
is important to identify the causes of delay not only to avoid
the finger pointing, but also for management to be able to fix
those causes.
Second, airlines still need to notify passengers at the
time of booking without being asked about the prior month's on
time performance for flights that are chronically delayed. That
is 40 percent or more of the time. None of the airlines to date
have done this voluntarily.
We see this, frankly, as a truth in advertising issue.
Thirty-seven thousand flights still fall in this category. In
our judgement, that is the Inspector General's judgement,
without Congressional or DOT action, corrective action will not
be forthcoming.
Third, the airlines need to clarify to their customers what
their rights are when they are put in an overnight situation.
People need to know that. The airlines formed a task force to
deal with this. Consumers have yet to see any change.
Fourth, FAA has made progress with respect to the seven
major chokepoints. There are a number of areas where they need
to set milestones, though, so they can track their progress.
Fifth, Free Flight Phase 2 is just around the corner. The
FAA needs to let this committee know what their milestones are
going to be, what the budget is going to be, and how this Free
Flight initiative is going to be integrated with the satellite
initiative, because taken together these programs aremulti-
billion dollar undertakings.
Finally, one of our commitments is to track runway
projects. I think FAA has made some real progress in developing
a system to track runway costs progress, and issues that stand
in the critical path.
One airport is supposed to have a new runway this year.
That is Detroit. I think it ranks No. 15 in the congested
airport category. It is important that they get the
navigational aids they need to make that runway operational in
November or December. Where the funding is going to come from
to pay for those navigational aids also must be determined.
That is the one airport runway that is due out of the box
this year. In 2002, none are due out of the box. In 2003, there
are a cluster of five or six that should become operational.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement and biography of Ken Mead follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Air Transport Association Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. We will be coming back to you on
those points and others.
Mr. Merlis.
Mr. Merlis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be back here and to review the progress we have
made since the last hearing was held.
I think it is important to note first off that your
persistence is paying off. As compared to year earlier figures,
as you have heard from the previous witnesses, delays are down,
customer complaints are down, mishandled baggage is down, and
on-time performance is up, so this exercise has great value.
COMMITMENTS AND PROGRESS
With respect to the commitments that I made, I would like
to review those briefly. My written statement has some greater
detail, and I would be happy to respond to questions.
Insofar as our first commitment both the Deputy Secretary
and the Administrator commented on how the results of the every
two hour conference calls out at Herndon have provided us some
benefits. DOT's data shows that the on-time performance for
April increased 3.9 percent over 2000 and that for May it
increased 7.2 percent over 2000, flight cancellations were down
in both of those months, and overall year to date delays were
somewhere near ten percent lower.
I think that as the previous witnesses observed, the
relatively good weather has helped. It is very important to
note that our ability to handle delays on days with adverse
weather is what has really improved. We provide a higher degree
of service on the days when there is adverse weather and we
have to cancel flights or delay flights, and it is because of
the communication system between the carriers and the FAA that
has been put into place.
This manifests itself when you take a look at the complaint
level because the complaint level is down greater than the
delay level is down, which means we must be doing something a
little bit better.
One thing that could help, as we have mentioned before, is
if the Congress passed this antitrust authority that has been
proposed and reported out of the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee. I think it is important to add to
that bill a provision which is not there, that gives us the
opportunity on days with weather delays to coordinate the
schedules between the airlines so that we can serve the maximum
number of passengers.
There is a value, of course, to doing it for the basic
schedule, but if we want to provide the most service for people
on the days when we do have delays or cancellations due to
weather there is a necessity to ensure that we can still talk
to one another to make sure that we do not adversely impact all
the people going to a particular destination from a particular
city.
Mr. Rogers. If I may interrupt briefly? This subcommittee
had intended to place in our bill authorizing language which
would have granted antitrust immunity so that airlines could
talk to each other through the Department about crises and
delays. The authorizing committee, the Judiciary, said no, we
will handle it. We said okay, we will see.
Mr. Merlis. Sir, if I may comment, I do not think that in
what they have reported it deals with the issue I have
addressed, which is how do we deal with coordinating schedules
on days with weather delays. They have not addressed that
issue, and I think that would provide greater service than any
other part of the antitrust scheduling bill would provide.
Mr. Rogers. Well, we are not through with it. This
subcommittee is not through with that topic yet.
Mr. Merlis. Very good, sir.
Mr. Rogers. I hope the Judiciary Committee acts and does
its job the way it should be done, but we will continue to
reserve the right to have a conversation about that later in
the year.
Mr. Merlis. We will support you on that, sir.
With respect to Item No. 2, we continue to provide the data
to DOT. As the previous witnesses indicated, that process will
soon result in some sort of requirement or rule making, which,
as I indicated previously, the industry will comply with. We
think it is very useful that we have a consistency in the
reporting.
DELAY DATA AVAILABILITY TO CUSTOMERS
No. 3 is the issue involving transfer of data from the
FAA's information into carrier systems used to inform
customers. As I indicated last time, a number of carriers have
installed systems at airports, among them American, Delta,
Northwest and United. They have installed some costly
technology in order to bring this information to the customers
at the gate. Now all ATA (air transport association) member
carriers provide the flight data on their websites when there
are delays, and that is one of the 17 additional customer
service commitments to which our members agreed to undertake a
few months ago.
Additionally, we put together an airline/airport FAA task
force to address the issue since some airport display monitors
are not fed data automatically from airline operation centers.
Airlines and airports need to review the process, which is in
process now, and coordinate their efforts to obtain and post
the data. Airport and airline managers will address this at the
local level because as each airline obtains the data, it has to
provide it to a key person in the airport who posts that
information.
We have a process that has begun, and I hope that we will
complete this within the next 60 to 90 days and that
subsequently a higher degree of accurate information will be
available at the airports.
Mr. Rogers. I heard a promise. I thought a heard a promise.
Mr. Merlis. Sir, I did say we want to complete this within
60 to 90 days.
Mr. Rogers. Sixty to 90 days. Complete?
Mr. Merlis. The process of identifying how we get
information fed from the carriers to those airport display
systems which are under the control of the airport, not the
airline.
Mr. Rogers. That is a new commitment, a new promise.
Mr. Merlis. Sir, I think it is the same one I already did,
but gives a concrete time table to one we already did.
Mr. Rogers. Yes. All right. Please proceed.
Mr. Merlis. Okay.
Mr. Rogers. That goes on the board, by the way.
CAPACITY EXPANSION PROJECTS
Mr. Merlis. Okay. The fourth item that I identified was
working with the airport community to identify capacity
expansion projects. We have been deeply engaged in this
activity, particularly at the 14 airports identified that in
the March 15 statement, as the industry's highest priority. Our
members are in regular discussions with those airports about
expansion requirements and determining how to undertake them,
how to finance them and what is the best way to address these
expansions.
Specifically, though, we at ATA have been involved in
efforts to increase the utilization of Newburgh and Westchester
County Airports in order to mitigate delays in New York City.
We have been involved in the building of the new runway at
Boston Logan, being as supportive as possible to Massport,
trying to overcome the local hurdles to that.
We have been working with the mayor of Chicago in efforts
to obtain the new runways that he has proposed for Chicago
O'Hare Airport, including people on our staff testifying at
state hearings. We have endorsed Mr. Lipinksi's bill, and we
are trying to help him in getting co-sponsors for this
legislation, which will overcome some of the obstacles that
exist to the building of the O'Hare Airport expansion.
We have been involved in the new runway at San Francisco,
having agreed with Mayor Brown to put together an advocacy
group, which we will participate in to try to overcome the
local community hurdles to that. With respect to Minneapolis-
St. Paul and the issue of the low frequency noise, we have been
engaged with the airport in finding ways to address it and
overcome that problem, too.
Lastly, these are specifically ATA staff, not the members
who could identify many more activities in which they are
engaged. We have been working with the regional coalition that
has been put together by communities and members of the
Congress from southern California who are looking at a regional
fix to the congestion problems at airports in southern
California. These will be ongoing activities because that is
the nature of airport construction. We need to find a way to
get these things done faster, and hopefully our efforts and our
members' efforts will help in that regard.
AIRLINE SCHEDULE CHANGES
Insofar as the fifth item goes, at the last hearing we
reported that was accomplished so I will go on to something
which while it is not on the board at the last hearing you did
indicate that we should work towards efforts to deal with the
issue of the capacity benchmarks and over scheduling at
airports.
What I would like to do is report on some of the activities
the carriers have undertaken. Previously, as you know, we
reported on American's activity at Dallas-Fort Worth, the
rebanking of flights at Atlanta by Delta Airlines and
Continental's unilateral rearrangement of its peaks at Newark.
Also in response to your question about using other
airports, Northwest, Southwest and U.S. Airways have increased
service to less congested airports, Manchester, Portland and
Providence, in order to try to reduce some of the congestion at
Boston. Oakland is being used more than San Francisco in fact.
Southwest Airlines has pulled down all its service into San
Francisco and is using Oakland as an alternative. White Plains,
Newburgh and Islip are three of the non-congested New York City
airports where some of our members have increased service.
The results of these activities to date appear to be
somewhat positive. American's on-time performance at Dallas-
Fort Worth was 85 percent in May. Continental's Newark de-
peaking resulted in its May systemwide on-time performance
reaching 86.1 percent, which was the highest of any major
airline, and Delta's May Atlanta on-time performance was 83
percent.
One of the more dramatic improvements has occurred at San
Francisco International Airport where United's major schedule
refinement, through the reduction of 245 flights a week and the
increasing of the size of the equipment it is using, has
resulted in United's May San Francisco performance, on-time
performance, hitting 85.2 percent, which is the highest of its
four hubs.
Additionally, San Francisco went from being the most delay
plagued airport in a country with 38.9 percent of its flights
delayed in the first half of 2000 to having a ten percent drop
to 29 percent delay in the first half of 2001.
One thing that United points out is that while it has cut
245 flights at San Francisco, but other airlines have now come
in behind, so the full benefit of its reduction is not being
felt at San Francisco Airport, though the benefit to United's
schedule is being felt.
US Airways has undertaken a review to ensure that all of
its hubs operate within the FAA capacity benchmarks, and so
Charlotte, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh no longer exceed the
benchmarks insofar as US Airway's schedule is concerned.
Additionally, in the June schedule US Airways restructured
its arrival and departure times at Philadelphia so that they do
not get what is called cross traffic; that is, periods of the
day when inbound flights enter the terminal area at the same
time as the outbound flights are leaving the gates and crossing
each other on the way causing additional problems.
US Airways has also now taken delivery of 22 new 169 seat
A-321 aircraft, which they are using these larger aircraft to
reduce flight schedules in some of the congested markets by
putting more people on fewer flights.
Other carriers have undertaken similar kinds of
refinements, but these are some of the concrete ones that I am
able to identify at this point and want to be in a position on
a regular basis to keep you apprised of these changes.
With that, I will be happy to respond to any questions,
sir.
[The prepared statement and biography of Edward Merlis
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Airport Executives Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. I will have some. Mr. Barclay.
Mr. Barclay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to do a
very brief rundown of the argue of the progress on the
commitments we have made, but I want to begin by thanking the
committee first for work on the appropriations bill that was
reported out and passed on the Floor.
We do not even get to the point of debating the issues of
streamlining approvals for runways if we do not have the money
to build those, so we are very grateful. That is an absolutely
critical starting element of solving this problem, so we
appreciate that.
We also appreciate the committee's work and Mr. Sabo's
leadership on adding greater funds for noise research. In the
long run, one of the greatest impediments to us adding capacity
to the system is aircraft noise, so looking at that issue in
the long term is extremely important. Number one is thank you.
airport construction streamlining process
On the items that we discussed before, I will spare you the
philosophical defense of our positions on all these things and
just run down our progress from again my point of view. The
first one was advocate the streamlining of runway construction.
This is our top priority. It is a long-term impact on the
system, but we are extremely encouraged.
People from the President to the Secretary to the Deputy
Security to the Administrator to key Members of Congress on
both sides of the Hill have been talking about the importance
of adding new runway capacity at the key airports in the
system. The entire industry is united on this issue, and today
over in the Senate the Senate Commerce Committee is reporting
on a bill that includes the core features of what we have been
recommending and other parts of the industry have been
recommending on streamlining this process. We are seeing good
progress there, and we are encouraged by that.
reimbursable agreements for environmental activities
Our second commitment was to advocate support for FAA staff
to help airports move more quickly, allow airports to pay for
FAA staffing that would more quickly move an application for a
new runway. We appreciate again the committee's effort to put
that in the bill here and realize on jurisdictional grounds it
was taken out on the Floor. That was put back in by the Senate
Appropriations Committee, so again there is good support for
that philosophically.
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee did not
argue with the merits of that issue. Administrator Garvey and
the FAA are working on doing this administratively. They are
doing a very good job working with San Francisco, so on both
the administrative and legislative ends we are seeing excellent
progress there, and we think that that one is going to happen.
anti-trust immunity
My third was we have substituted at the Chairman's
recommendation the lifting of the cap on PFCs for the issue Mr.
Merlis mentioned, which is recovery immunity different and
distinct from the issue of scheduling immunity that is a more
debatable notion.
A number of our members have problems with the idea of
airlines sitting down for a longer term to debate schedules for
the next six months, but there is virtual unanimity among our
members and I think among the industry that recovery immunity,
which is 24 hour immunity to recover from a weather or other
event in the system, allow airlines with FAA's oversight to
discuss how do we recover from this one day event I think is a
notion that is unexceptionable, but it is going to take us a
little time to have the debate and get everyone understanding
this is separate and distinct from the longer term immunity,
which does have some philosophical issues attached to it.
That item is also in the bill being scheduled to be marked
up this morning over on the Senate Commerce Committee, and it
is put in there separate from the scheduling immunity. They
also have scheduling immunity in that bill.
We are very encouraged, and we did follow through on our
commitment to lead a membership resolution that all the members
of association of airport executes endorsed that, which had not
happened prior to this commitment.
airport revenues for remediation
The next one was to provide more flexibility for allowing
airports off-airport remediation in order to speed many of
these runway projects. There are current restrictions in the
law that say that airports are only allowed to spend the
revenues they earn on the airport within the airport
boundaries. Often you can remediate environmental problems off
the airport to make up for any disruptions being caused by a
runway extension.
That is again a key part of allowing us and giving us the
tools we need to build more runways. That again is in the bills
currently in process over in the Senate. It is being considered
by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It is
a long-term issue, but again one that we are seeing very good
progress on.
delay information for customers
We also committed to help in the effort to get better
information to customers, which is something that is being
accomplished in large part by FAA and CNN with the new ticker.
That has been accomplished. CNN on the televisions in the gate
areas that are seen, and these are in gate areas that serve 400
million of the passengers in the country.
Whenever there is more than a 60 minute delay at any
airport, a ticker starts naming those airports where there is
greater than 60 minute delays so the passenger has a separate
line of information coming directly from FAA by looking at
those monitors, which are strategically placed, of course, for
passengers to see them.
Let me add on that one that we all in the industry
understand that the real issue is that customers do not want
better information about delays. They want delays to stop. We
all realize that, but once you are in a delay situation the
only anecdote to frustration is information in that instance.
This is going to be I think a very useful tool because no
matter how good a job we do on adding capacity and solving some
of the delay problems in the system, schedules are always going
to be secondary to safety so you are going to at times due to
weather have flights held up, and this is going to be useful
information for the passenger, so that is one that is being
done.
We are also working with the airlines and the FAA on more
wireless information going out to people who have PDAs and
Black Berries and other tools to be able to communicate
directly with them on delay information.
Finally, on coordination of air traffic control information
for airports to use that again is something we have
accomplished. We appreciate very much the cooperation of FAA.
We are pushing that information out. In addition to linking in
on our website for airports, we are actually pushing it to the
desktops of airports with our satellite information network.
That is one we have accomplished.
We are actually working currently with FAA to provide even
more detailed, broken down information, but the top 30 airport
information is already out there.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement and biography of Charles Barclay
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Air Line Pilots Association Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Barclay.
Captain Dolan.
Mr. Dolan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Members
of the subcommittee. I am pleased to be here this morning.
Once again, I would like to reiterate Captain Woerth's
apologies for not being here. He does have a great interest in
the subcommittee. Unfortunately, his prior commitment precluded
him from being here. I know, Mr. Chairman, you said you like to
chew on the same people. I hope you find me as chewable as
Captain Woerth.
Before I get into my update on the remarks, I would just
like to say that while I have not been directly involved in the
subcommittee's activities, I have followed these issues with
great interest in my position as ALPA's First Vice-President.
There is an old adage in real estate that says location,
location, location. I think the mantra here is communication,
communication, communication.
I applaud the subcommittee and you, Mr. Chairman, for
bringing together these players in the industry to be able to
sit down finally I think and put the hard issues on the table.
Let us develop some solutions. These are problem solvers here.
I am convinced of that. I feel that I am a problem solver, and
I think that we have been given the venue to do that. I applaud
you for that.
free flight steering committee
Rather than reading my written testimony, I would just like
to synopsize some of the salient points. In regard to Point 1,
ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association) is committed to a high level
of participation in the RTCA Free Flight steering committee. As
you know, Captain Woerth sits on the steering committee. There
is a quarterly meeting scheduled next week. He will be there,
along with our Director of Engineering and Safety, who is our
key staff person on safety and air traffic issues. The main
agenda item there is to combine Free Flight with the FAA's
Operational Evolutionary Plan.
Along with the commitment to attend these meetings, I think
it is important to understand that we have committed the
resources as well to make sure that we have the pilot
volunteers involved and that we get the line pilot input that
is required to make sure that all the stakeholders have their
issues addressed.
Specifically, we are making resources available to staff
the federal advisory committee and follow that, which is
working on NAS architecture and integration of that. As part of
that, there is a Free Flight working group. It has been my
experience on a number of committees and things that I have
worked on that the working group is where the rubber meets the
road. That is where the work gets done in these committees. I
applaud the Free Flight steering committee for establishing
work groups to try to integrate these difficult issues.
air line pilots and controller alliance
On the second item, I think that we have made some real
progress in our establishment of our alliance with our
colleagues at NATCA. I have been appointed the ALPA liaison
person with NATCA, and we have had a couple of meetings in the
last several weeks. We have really established some good
working relationships and good ground rules to tackle issues
such as land and hold short operations and simultaneous offset
instrument approaches. These are capacity enhancement tools,
and there is a big stake in both of these for the controllers
and the pilots as well.
We are also planning to mutually support the Communicating
for Safety conference scheduled in September. This will give us
an opportunity to get pilots and controllers together. There is
a lot of--I hate to say it--miscommunication because
communication is a way of life with us, both of us, the pilots
and controllers. They ride on our jumpseats, and it is a good
experience for them, but too often the pilots do not get to
talk to the controllers one on one to find out what their real
issues are. This is an opportunity to do that.
We are trying not only just at the national ALPA level, the
elected leadership, to get pilots and controllers together. We
would like to see the folks in the field come together as well,
and we are working on that.
pilot, controller, and dispatcher alliance
The third item is bringing the dispatchers into the liaison
with ALPA and NATCA. I am pleased to say that our colleagues at
NATCA and ALPA both sent a joint letter to the dispatchers
union president, and they are very enthusiastic about joining
the liaison. Unfortunately, they were unable to make our last
meeting on the 5th of July. Nevertheless, the next meeting that
is scheduled will be include the dispatchers. I think this
brings another level of experience and knowledge into the
equation here for us to get to the root of some of these
problems since the dispatchers are an integral part of airline
operations.
FLIGHT TIME/DUTY TIME RULES
On the fourth item, we have for a long time thought that
the standardization of flight time/duty time issues is very
important and will provide an ability for the airlines to have
more practical scheduling and the ability to gather historical
data that will allow them to build realistic schedules. I think
that, we are still waiting, more than patiently for the
implementation by the FAA on some flight time/duty time rules.
I do have to say that it does not help when they do enforce
a rule that is already in effect, and they are immediately sued
by someone over the implementation of a rule that has been in
effect since 1985. We need to get beyond that. We need to get
these rules established, and we need to move on with some
realistic scheduling practices. We would appreciate any help we
can get from the subcommittee in making that a reality as well.
NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM MODERNIZATION STRATEGIC PLAN
On the last item, my understanding was that there was
perhaps some thought that there was some redundancy at the last
subcommittee hearing on this particular issue with the
Association. Captain Woerth came back after the hearing. We sat
down, and we had a very deep discussion on the issues involved.
Perhaps I think what happened to us is we maybe did not
articulate well enough exactly what we are doing in regard to
the last item here.
In 1999, our executive council, one of our governing
bodies, approved a NAS modernization strategic plan, which we
have since begun to implement. We have committed a lot of
resources, both financial and pilot resources, to ensure that
we are involved in every phase of NAS modernization. We in fact
have gone out and recruited more safety volunteers, about 50 is
my last count, to make sure that we are able to provide line
pilot input on all these important projects. It does not help
us, our service, to get down the track, so to speak, and not
have had the ability to have our input and say what we feel are
the important issues.
We have definitely committed funding. In fact, we are going
to make this a line item in our budgeting process for next
year. I will just highlight some of the things. We want to
basically encourage basic research development and
implementation for new and improved air traffic management
tools, work to strengthen and maintain industry consensus on
these critical NAS modernization issues and other such projects
as that. We are committed to spend the time, the effort and the
resources to make the pilot input effective and meaningful.
That pretty much synopsizes my written testimony, Mr.
Chairman. I will be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement and biography of Captain Dennis
Dolan follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
National Air Traffic Controllers Opening Statement
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Captain.
Mr. Carr.
Mr. Carr. Good morning, Chairman Rogers and Congressman
Sabo, Members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity
to testify this morning on NATCA's efforts to reduce aviation
delays. I also appreciate the opportunity to go last because I
had the opportunity to go over my remarks and make sure I was
not making any new promises.
Flight Delays And Cancellations
Flight delays and cancellations have eased somewhat over
the past few months, and I believe that this is a testament to
a new era of cooperation. We view the results so far as a
beginning rather than an end, thanks in no small part to the
leadership of this subcommittee, NATCA, the Secretary's office,
the FAA, the pilots, the airlines and the airports all working
together to develop and implement concrete solutions to the
delay dilemma.
In fact, just last week NATCA and the Air Transport
Association co-hosted the 2001 Aviation Capacity Summit, which
focused on forging industry consensus on airport capacity, air
traffic control modernization and long-term funding issues.
Thirteen different groups from every corner of the aviation
community came together in sending a letter to the President
asking him to make these issues a national priority.
Air Traffic Modernization Tools Booklet
I am also pleased to report that NATCA has made significant
progress on the five commitments we made to this subcommittee.
First and foremost, we are committed to operating and
maintaining the safest air traffic control system in the world.
We remain an advocate of Administrator Garvey's evolutionary
approach to modernization. We are directly involved in over 65
technology projects with the agency, and we will continue to
lead both the agency and the industry into the twenty-first
century.
As a matter of fact, in an effort to provide information to
government officials, industry and media we have recently
created the Air Traffic Modernization Tools booklet as an
introductory reference guide to many of the FAA's technology
programs. We took the liberty of providing the subcommittee
with copies of the booklet.
With respect to the FAA's modernization effort, we believe
it is critical to correct any misconceptions or inaccurate
information in the interest of safety. This is especially
important when our air traffic control system is being compared
to that of other countries. The U.S. system is the most
sophisticated in the world. We handle twice as many IFR
(instrument flight rules) flights with the same number of
controllers and at almost the same total cost as Eurocontrol.
The FAA is modernizing our system gradually, effectively and
very carefully.
NAV Canada
On July 17, the Wall Street Journal carried a story
entitled The Unfriendly Skies, which advocated quite radical
reform of the FAA, touting Nav Canada as the perfect model. The
article mentions Nav Canada's sterling safety record with two
operating irregularities per 100,000 operations. If that is
sterling, then the United States, with only .67 errors, is more
than three times better than sterling.
As a matter of fact, I testified earlier this summer on
runway incursions, and Mr. Mead can tell you just how seriously
we take those events. It is important to note that runway
incursions are up over 145 percent in Canada since the advent
of privatization.
The article goes on to credit Nav Canada with investments
in technology and declining delays. However, in reality they
use their surpluses to reduce air navigation fees, as opposed
to investments in modernization or equipment.
The simple fact that Canada does not have a national flight
data processing system puts them 20 or so years behind us in
automation functionality. Without this basic system, Canada
does not have the automated ability to hand aircraft off
between centers within their own system. This is a very basic
and core functionality of all United States air traffic control
centers and has enabled us to achieve the efficiencies which
are the model for the rest of the world.
Controller Workforce
On our second item, NATCA is working to ensure that there
are enough qualified and trained air traffic controllers to
handle increased traffic growth, the opening of new sectors and
to prepare for the impending retirement crunch. The President's
fiscal 2002 budget request is consistent with the NATCA/FAA
contract and will help the FAA address increased traffic
levels. We support the Senate fiscal year 2002 transportation
appropriations bill language, which includes full funding for
the Administration's request.
Tomorrow marks the twentieth anniversary of the PATCO
(Professional air traffic controllers association) strike when
approximately 11,350 air traffic controllers nationwide were
fired. The replacement work force will reach retirement
eligibility in a very short period of time. GAO is currently
trying to determine whether the FAA has sufficient numbers of
controllers to meet its short- and long-term staffing needs. In
order to obtain accurate data, the GAO, in consultation with my
union, has procured a survey which we are pretesting this very
week.
Additionally, on May 10, Senator Cleland introduced S. 871,
the Federal Air Traffic Controllers Annuity Computation Act.
The bill changes the annuity computation for controllers under
CSRS (civil service retirement system) to give them the same
annuity afforded to both federal firefighters and law
enforcement officials. This changed annuity computation would
provide an incentive for the 5,000 CSRS controllers to work
beyond their retirement eligibility. We are working to co-
sponsor and to get the legislation introduced in the House.
Airspace Redesign
On our third item, NATCA remains a partner in national
airspace redesign. Since signing the national airspace redsign
memorandum of understanding, five new sectors have been opened
in Cleveland, Chicago and Indianapolis centers. Current testing
is being done at three other centers to incorporate part-time
sectors to deal with peak hour volume and demand. Additionally,
modification of the airspace for the Las Vegas Airport is in
the final stages of implementation. NATCA is committed to NAR
and will continue to play an active role, especially in the
technical aspects of this project.
Aircraft Separation Standards
On our fourth item, NATCA would like to thank this
subcommittee for the funds provided in the House fiscal 2002
transportation bill to examine reduced separation standards. As
I have described here before, any marginal or fractional
decrease in separation standards could instantaneously free up
unused capacity in the system. Any decrease must also be
measured against the litmus test of safety, and we look forward
to examining these separation standards in tandem with
industry.
Management Advisory Council
Lastly, NATCA continues to work to obtain the labor seat on
the Management Advisory Council. I have sent letters and
testified before both the Aviation authorizing and
Appropriations Committees asking for their support. Numerous
Members of Congress have contacted the Administration on my
behalf, and, most recently, I have contacted the seven current
members of the MAC to ask for their support. There are still
four openings on the Management Advisory Council, including the
labor seat. NATCA strongly believes that it is imperative that
these seats be filled as soon as possible.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my testimony. As always, I
will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement and biography of John Carr
follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
DELAY PANEL CONSENSUS ON RESOLUTION
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much. Thank you for your
testimony. I would like to thank all of you for being here
again with us.
First off, before any of us ask questions, it might be
helpful if any of you wanted some rebuttal time to rebut
something somebody else said. Does anybody want to make a point
that somebody else may have made on the panel? We can have a
conversation here.
[No response.]
Mr. Rogers. Do I take that to mean that each of you agree
with everything the other said?
Mr. Merlis. Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Garvey. You go get them, Ed.
Mr. Merlis. I am not prepared to agree with everything that
the airline pilots said, particularly with respect to flight
time/duty time, the litigation which ATA has brought, but I am
not sufficiently versed to rebut him. I do not want my silence
to be perceived as concurrence.
CAUSES OF DELAYS
Mr. Rogers. Well, what I meant to do here was start a
conversation amongst you because you are the experts in the
field more so certainly than us; not necessarily to rebut an
argument, but to make a point that somebody else may have made
that you would like to play off of.
Mr. Mead.
Mr. Mead. It is not in the nature of rebuttal, but I would
like to say I identified six of what I think are key action
items for the subcommittee. I think that is consistent with our
role and the commitments.
Now, there are a couple of those that I believe are really
important, but I believe the Department, the Secretary, the
Deputy Secretary, and Ms. Garvey have discussed them. One of
them had to do with tracking the causes of delay. I think you
should hear from Mr. Jackson directly on what the plans are for
that because I think you will see that that is getting
accelerated, that the pedal will go to the medal, so to speak.
I also mentioned, in regard to tracking new runways, the
Detroit runway and that it is important that that runway go
operational as scheduled this year and that the needed
navigational aids are in place. Ms. Garvey has assured me that
that will happen.
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, it shows how the Inspector
General and the Department are in concurrence about using his
advice to guide management decisions and this was the one point
that I wanted to make. That is just to give you a little bit of
an update on our views at the Department on tracking the cause
for delay and where we are.
The four party pilot test that we did was very, very
useful. I am very, impatient to move from a pilot project and
talking about it to doing it. I am also eager to move to a
requirement that airlines provide us this type of data. We have
talked to the industry, and I believe they will be supportive
of that. We have a regulatory process that has to happen, but
we are committed in August to have a meeting with the industry
to talk about how to get everybody onto a base of being able to
do this on a voluntary basis much sooner.
We have also instructed our General Counsel and the FAA to
work together with me to find the most expeditious way to get
to a rule making. We are looking at negotiated rule making
processes. We are looking at interim final rules. We want to
start with a conversation that tells us where is the bottom
line, and how do we get there and then move as fast as possible
towards this.
I think this is a very important point that the Inspector
has made, and it is one that the Secretary and I have absolute
commitment to move as rapidly as possible to accomplish.
DELAY INFORMATION MANDATE
Mr. Rogers. Well, it is also a point that Congress made
when we wrote the AIR-21 law.
Mr. Jackson. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. You are required by law----
Mr. Jackson. That is right.
Mr. Rogers [continuing]. To modify current reporting
regulations ``to disclose more fully to the public the nature
and source of delays and cancellations.'' That is the law that
AIR-21 exacted. That is to include the establishment of
categories reflecting the reasons for delays and a requirement
that airlines include such categories in reports to the DOT on
airline delays. A requirement.
I am told now that four airlines--American, Southwest,
United and Delta--are participating in a pilot program where
they report on a test basis the causes of delays using a
standardized format agreed to by the FAA and the industry, but
to date 16 months after enactment of that mandate in the law by
the Congress DOT has not announced yet plans to formalize that
method of reporting and, to my knowledge, has not begun the
rule making process.
We hear that you want to do a pilot program. I do not know
what incentives an airline would have to participate in a pilot
program or the fact that a pilot program would last any time or
be worth anything. This is the law. We are not going to play
around with this one. We are not going to give you much leeway.
You have had 16 months. You have not, but the Department has.
Mr. Secretary, you are new on the job, but you are Mr.
Airline Delay down there. The Congress has said put a system in
place. The airlines have been told to participate. We want to
know. We want to know the causes, and we want to know the
information about delays. This is one we are not going to turn
loose on.
I am chagrined that we do not have anything in place. Like
the Inspector General has said, that is the whole problem here.
If we had a system in place where FAA knew from the airlines
that we have delays, a delay, and we have a system of
determining the causes of the delay, then we can announce that
to the world, and consumers can buy their tickets accordingly.
I understand why the airlines do not want to give that
information out. They need to understand why we are going to
insist that they give it out. We cannot make this thing work
without it. Airline delays will continue to be a problem until
we eliminate the problem and the causes for the problem. I
think the market will take care of it after that.
If a person buying a ticket is told and can find out that
the flight they want to buy a ticket for is 40 percent
consistently late and they still want to buy the ticket, then
that is an informed purchase. The market has taken care of
that. They may choose something else. At any rate, they have
had the choice. They do not have that choice now.
The law says they are entitled to know. The way I see it,
it is this subcommittee's obligation to make that law happen. I
will just tell you. We got a hold of you, and we are not going
to turn loose.
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, I want to be right next to you
on this one. I agree 100 percent. The pilot is over. The next
meeting with the industry is to tell them what they are going
to have to do and to listen one last time as we refine our
regulatory approach to mandate that process and the parameters
of the type of data they are going to submit to us.
You have my personal commitment. I am going to handle this
one through the regulatory process to get it done.
Mr. Rogers. Hey, a commitment.
Mr. Jackson. And I say that with full knowledge of what
things bring, and I am happy to have it.
DELAY DATA INTERIM FINAL RULE
Mr. Rogers. The next question I have is what kind of date
can we put behind that promise?
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, I had a conversation on that
topic with our General Counsel this morning again to try to get
closure on it. We are working on three different options to
look at it, and I will provide an update for you as soon as we
have made a decision, which will be very shortly, in the next
several weeks, about how we can bring this to closure fastest.
My requirement in the Department is to do it right, but
using the regulatory mechanism that gets it done fastest. We
are looking at an interim final rule, we are looking at a
negotiated rule making process, and we are looking at an
expedited rule making as well. These are the three options that
we are assessing.
Mr. Rogers. I am just looking for when can we expect to see
what we mandated in AIR-21? When can we see that? I mean, that
is not a complicated thing.
Mr. Jackson. No.
Mr. Rogers. Did I hear you say you are not going to decide
how you are going to proceed for several weeks yet?
Mr. Jackson. No, sir. We have decided where we want to go.
We are looking at how to be able to cut that time line down to
the smallest number of days.
The Inspector General's testimony says that we are going to
do this by fall of next year, and that is just totally
unacceptable to me and so we are working through how we can get
this done. Our proposal is to request that this be done
immediately on a voluntary basis and to implement an obligation
to provide us this data as fast as the Department can legally
do so.
I will provide you an interim update on that schedule as
soon as we nail that down in the next several weeks.
Mr. Rogers. It is going to take you several weeks to nail
down an estimate?
Mr. Jackson. We are looking at the various options, and we
wanted to have this meeting with the industry to asses how fast
we could bring this into closure.
To get you a complete answer and an answer on a date that I
am going to stick with and that you can put down as a
commitment of the Department, I do need a couple of weeks more.
Mr. Rogers. A couple of weeks?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Before you tell me----
Mr. Jackson. The exact date and how long we think the
regulatory process is going to take us to get to closure.
Mr. Rogers. The 16th of August?
Mr. Jackson. Done.
PILOT PROGRAM KEY DELAY INDICATORS
Mr. Rogers. Now, you have a pilot program that I have been
briefed on. Ms. Garvey, do you want to proceed and tell us what
you have? I am looking at the charts here. Do you have those
charts with you?
Ms. Garvey. I do have the charts, and I believe all of the
Members have them as well. Here is a larger display of them.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Garvey. It essentially shows and tracks the delays of
this year and the delays last year. As you can see, the red is
2001, and the blue is----
Mr. Rogers. You are talking about the upper left chart?
Ms. Garvey. That is right.
Mr. Rogers. Right?
Ms. Garvey. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. And the red shows the 2001 percent of flights
delayed?
Ms. Garvey. Percent of flights delayed. That is correct,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. And the blue is 2000, the same period?
Ms. Garvey. That is correct. We are seeing, as you can see,
the percent of flights delayed. The next box is the number of
flights.
Mr. Rogers. That is on the top right?
Ms. Garvey. The top right. It also shows the percent of
flights canceled, and the number of flights canceled.
Essentially as we said in all of our testimony, as you can see,
the trends are heading in the right direction. This is
something, the key delay indicator, that is very accessible. I
think we have a great opportunity to introduce to you the staff
person who had worked so hard on this, but it is something we
would like to provide to the committee on a regular basis and
certainly provide to the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary.
Mr. Rogers. Now, these are just four airlines, right?
Ms. Garvey. Actually, this is broader, Mr. Chairman. This
now has 10 of the airlines at the top 32 airports, so we have
some good information here. I think the pilot program will
identify the causes, which is what we are talking about a
little bit further.
Mr. Rogers. I see. So these figures are all airlines?
Ms. Garvey. These are the 10 airlines. We eventually would
like, of course, to expand it even further, but it is the 10
carriers at 32 airports, those top 32 airports that we keep
focusing on.
Mr. Rogers. And how timely are these?
Ms. Garvey. These are actually very timely. We get this
information daily, so we are getting some very good information
from those 10 airlines.
Mr. Rogers. It looks to me like the latest figures we have
on the chart I have here looks to be the 1st of July. Is that
correct? Is that the latest information?
Ms. Garvey. I am sorry. This is through July 15. Yes. As I
mentioned earlier in my testimony, the preliminary numbers for
July are showing turnarounds in the same direction.
Ken, you have worked on this as well.
Mr. Mead. What you essentially have here is the red line is
the 2001 number. For every one of the metrics, you will see
that that is trending below the blue line. The blue line, of
course, is 2000.
These are the delay and cancellation data. In our opinion,
the Department and FAA have moved many mountains in actually
capturing delay and cancellation data compared to where we were
last year.
The question on the pilot program pertains to the causes,
capturing the causes of delays and cancellations. That is where
we are falling short right now.
Mr. Rogers. Right, but this is a big deal.
Mr. Mead. A big deal.
Ms. Garvey. It is very, very exciting for us.
Mr. Rogers. Why is it such a big deal?
Ms. Garvey. It does not take much, Mr. Chairman, for some
of us. [Laughter.]
Sorry.
key delay indicators
Mr. Rogers. When we first had these hearings and you told
me you had been working on defining the word delay for 11
years, I was shocked, but then I do not know what the word
means either.
Why is this such a big deal to for the first time
apparently see on a graph a depiction of delays and
cancellations? Mr. Mead?
Mr. Mead. Well, I think there are a couple of reasons. They
had to bring the Bureau of Transportation statistics together
with FAA, essentially two different agencies, and then they had
to realize that they were going to manage by this. That is what
is being done now.
Also, you will recall the capacity benchmarks. The capacity
benchmarks were sensitive because they showed very graphically
how many flights could be handled by a particular airport. If
you were above that line, it showed that you were scheduling
too many flights at that airport. It could not be handled.
Those are out now, and I think that is a very significant
development, too, because it has allowed FAA to develop their
Operational Evolution Plan, which is based on what these
individual airports can handle. I thought the capacity
benchmarks were a very significant milestone, but the
resistance there was very, very serious, and it was
significant.
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, there is one other I think very
significant piece of this. We had a lot of this data, sometimes
people say the government is very data rich, but information
poor. We had a lot of this information, but I think what
Carlton Wine has been able to do is to put it in very
understandable form so that people can look at it and can see
it on a real time basis. We are getting the information daily
from the airlines. The fact is that it is, first of all, much
more precise and much more accurate because it is real time,
and then secondly the fact that it is understandable as all of
us are looking at it I think is significant as well.
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to add that
while it is a big deal, it should not have had to take a big
deal to get us this data. This is core information which the
public needs to know and should have, so it is a commentary on
where we have been that it is a big deal. It is absolutely the
type of thing that the public should have a right to see and
do, and we are committed to providing this type of information
in a timely fashion.
Mr. Rogers. Well, it is a huge step because it gives lay
people like us a chance to quickly grasp whether or not we are
making any progress or not and for the public to judge as well.
As I pointed out a few minutes ago now, what we really need
now are the causes for those delays from the airlines so that
we can begin to assess blame. If a certain airline has got a
problem, they are going to pay for it at the ticket counter.
Mr. Jackson. Right. It is assessing blame, but it is also
being able to manage our way through problems so that we know
what exactly to spend our time on and where the biggest benefit
is to go looking at both particular airlines and also in the
system itself.
I think it is a tool for us to know what we in the
government need to do, but it is a broader tool to help us move
forward in some real way on fixing the problems.
Causes of Delay
Mr. Rogers. Before I turn the mike over, Mr. Merlis, will
the airlines cooperate with DOT and the FAA on getting the
causes of delays reported?
Mr. Merlis. Absolutely. We have four carriers in this pilot
program providing the information, and the rest are mindful
that the results will be some regulatory guidance or otherwise
that this will now be the way that data is collected and
submitted to the government.
I am under the impression that some of those people who are
providing the data feel very comfortable that the terminology,
the rationale, makes good sense. The Department has to review
the causes and decide which ones are going to be required,
which terminology will be required, and then we will do it. We
are there.
Mr. Rogers. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Since we started these hearings, I follow a little bit more
closely what happens whenever I get in a plane. I happen to be
lucky. I really do not have many delayed flights. They are
close to being on time, but there are still things as I
observe.
I think back to my last flight a week ago. I got on the
plane here right on time. It was 25 minutes later before we
took off. We taxied out and waited and waited and moved forward
a little bit. Twenty-five minutes later we were finally in the
air. They told us the in-air time was two hours and 15 minutes.
Then we flew. We got over Lake Michigan about Eau Claire.
We got an announcement we were circling because of delays
getting into Minneapolis Airport. Then all of a sudden we took
off again and saw the airport down below. We kept going and
going. They do that for flight patterns at times, but about the
time I expected we should turn around they kept going. We were
way out in the country for a while. All of a sudden we turned
around and came back.
The air time was supposed to be two hours and 15 minutes.
From the time we left here to the time I got to the gate was
three hours and 15 minutes. The schedule always accommodates a
little more time, so it was only 15 minutes late. No big deal.
Why so long to taxi out? Is that because the gates need to
be available? Is it first come/first served as you get out
there? You know, I do not know. If we knew that there is
slowness getting in--can you hold somebody here longer? You are
probably not relating so much to our convenience, but I assume
lots of fuel is wasted when you are circling for a period of
time, flying a hundred extra miles. What happens? Why?
Mr. Carr. Mr. Sabo, if I might, I will take a shot at part
of that question anyway.
The practical application of getting that airplane from the
gate to the gate, and from the time you push off that gate
until the time you pull into the next gate is the job of the
air traffic controllers that I represent. And I can tell you
that it is anything from a smooth transition and a routine
operation to herding cats. It just depends on a number of
factors--weather, equipment, other airports, weather enroute.
So when you came off the gate the airline was ready to
aviate. You then got in a queue of other airlines ready to
aviate. And any number of things could occur on your way to the
runway. A departure gate could be shut off because of volume or
because of traffic or because of an accident or because of
weather enroute which would cause aircraft that are in front of
you in that line to not be able to depart.
For instance, maybe the weather was bad enroute to
Minneapolis, perhaps it was weather between Washington and
Cincinnati, for instance. So everybody between you and the end
of the runway that was going south or southwest, could not go.
So it requires a rearranging of all the aircraft.
So 25 minutes is not, in my mind's eye anyway, an
extraordinary amount of time to get 300,000 pounds of people,
baggage, mail and fuel to the end of the runway in concert with
all of the other things that occur to get you out there, number
one, ready to go.
Then enroute, it really is an extraordinarily dynamic
environment in which----
airport capacity
Mr. Sabo. I am always curious, though, as we get to that
runway. We always see this long lineup.
Mr. Carr. Well, that is a function of staffing, but it is
also a function of the capacity of the airport itself, whether
or not the single runway is being used for departures and
arrivals or whether there are two runways which can be used in
concert or in tandem. Perhaps there was a shutoff of traffic
because the departure controller had an emergency. There could
be an emergency on a controller's frequency that he is working
and he just shuts off traffic to devote his pure and undivided
attention to that emergency. Well, that leaves people on the
ground on a clear day like today who wonder why they are being
delayed, when in fact the event may be 50 or 60 miles away. But
it is still worthy of that controller's undivided attention. So
it is just a compendium of things that come to bear on every
moment of activity from the moment you push off that gate until
you step back off that airplane.
low frequency noise
Mr. Sabo. Mr. Merlis, you said your association was
involved in the low frequency noise issue.
Mr. Merlis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sabo. A question to you and Administrator Garvey. Where
are we at at that issue?
Mr. Merlis. I do not think it is resolved yet.
Mr. Sabo. That is what I am afraid of. It has been going
and going. It clearly is a major new type of issue that relates
to people living parallel to airports, not necessarily under
the flight ban.
Ms. Garvey. Congressman----
Mr. Sabo. It is slow and tedious.
Ms. Garvey. You are absolutely right. As I mentioned to you
a little earlier, I met with some of the folks from your
communities who have a real interest in it. We have submitted
some additional information that they have, which we are eager
to take a look at and told them we would be getting back to
them very quickly.
You are absolutely right. This is an issue that is
relatively new to us, and we certainly have not dealt with in
this kind of depth before. We are interested to look at what
information they provided and had a very good discussion with
them yesterday. So we will be getting back to you as soon as we
have a chance to look at that and talk a little bit further
with them.
[The information follows:]
The Federal Interagency Committee on Aviation Noise (FICAN)
is reviewing the subject of low frequency aircraft noise.
At its meeting on June 27, 2001, FICAN invited the
Richfield (MN)--Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) Low
Frequency Noise Expert Panel to present their views of the low
frequency aircraft noise issue. In December 1998, the City of
Richfield and the MAC agreed to convene a low-frequency noise
expert panel to undertake detailed studies of existing and
potential impacts of low-frequency aircraft noise in
communities around Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The panel concluded its work in September 2000 with the
submission of a final report, entitled ``Findings of Low-
Frequency Noise Expert Panel of the Richfield-MAC Noise
Mitigation Agreement of December 17, 1998, Volumes 1 through
111, September 30, 2000.''
The panel came to consensus on the following areas:
Effects of low-frequency noise.
Descriptor of low-frequency noise.
Relationship between low-frequency noise and
annoyance.
Criteria for acceptability of low-frequency noise
in residential areas.
There are three main technical points on which the panel did
not come to consensus:
Low-frequency noise from thrust reverse.
The measure of ``dose'' in the Low-Frequency Sound
Level (LFSL).
Remedial treatment measures.
FICAN also is reviewing technical comments that Northwest
Airlines made on the expert panel's report. In addition, FICAN
will be considering comments from its member agencies, previous
reports on the issue, and other documents. FICAN expects to
issue a statement by the end of the year.
labor relations contract
Mr. Sabo. Thank you.
A question, Mr. Jackson. It is not directly related to
delays but it is related to operations.
My understanding is the FAA negotiated with AFSCME a
contract, and my understanding is federal labor relations
authorities issued a complaint that finds that the FAA chief
negotiators agreed to a contract with AFSCME but the FAA has
never implemented the contract. My understanding is that the
problem may be above the level of the FAA. So we have 2,000
employees working without a contract. My understanding is they
have not received their 2001 pay raise yet while other FAA
employees have. And I find this upsetting. When can we, do you
think this situation will be resolved?
Mr. Jackson. There is a hearing next week in this dispute,
and we hope to learn something from that hearing and decide
what the next steps need to be for that.
The approval process for all of the FAA labor negotiations
within the department, as I understand it, is within FAA, which
had the special labor negotiating authority granted to it. It
has always involved a process of obtaining OMB approval at the
end gate. This one ran afoul of that final approval, but that
has always been baked into this process.
So we are very eager to see this worked through, find an
equitable way to move forward, and are eager to participate in
this hearing next week and see what the next steps might be.
Mr. Sabo. I would appreciate a report.
Mr. Rogers. Let me interrupt you. We have just a couple of
minutes left on a vote.
Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Rogers. Let us recess, and then you will be recognized
as soon as we return.
Mr. Sabo. Okay.
Mr. Rogers. We will stand in brief recess.
[Recess.]
weather delays
Mr. Wolf. He said he was on his way back. I passed him as
we were running.
Let me begin by asking a question before he comes back.
One, I want to congratulate the subcommittee for having
this hearing. Too often there have been times that you asked
questions in budget hearings and they said they are going to
get back and they never really even get back. So I think to
have this on a constant basis where there is an accountability
is very, very important. Also I think you all should be
congratulated, obviously I believe the figures.
Have you factored in the fact that if you had the same
weather as last year and the economy were growing this year as
it was last year, how would these numbers stay? There are ways
of doing it with computer models. Can anyone answer that?
Ms. Garvey. Congressman, I am not sure we have done that
yet, but you are right. We can certainly try. I can tell you
that last June, for example, we had 19 consecutive just
terrible weather days that really put us on our heels, and this
year we certainly saw much different weather patterns. But we
can run the models and see what it would be like.
Interestingly enough, even though the economy is a little
soft, if you look at those key hubs we are still finding they
are very busy. And we are finding the aircraft, and I may have
more information on this, but at least some of the numbers I
have seen indicate the load factors are still pretty solid, but
there are not as many business travelers. So for the airlines
economic bottom line it is tougher, but from our perspective of
moving aircraft through the system in those busy hubs, we are
still finding them pretty busy.
air traffic volume
Mr. Wolf. Are there as many aircraft moving this year as--I
know your profits are down in certain areas and the tickets are
topping. Are there as many planes flying now?
Mr. Merlis. Virtually. I think as opposed to the rate of
growth and the increased flights which was somewhat more in
previous years. There still is some measure of growth that has
taken place because you cannot just turn this off on a dime.
So I do not think we have reduced by any order of magnitude
system wide the number of flights that are out there. We may
have even increased a little bit because you have additional
regional jets entering the system which, of course from an air
traffic control standpoint, add a little measure of
complication.
Mr. Wolf. Well I would just be interested to see, and I do
want to congratulate you. I mean if you look at this, obviously
there has been some significant improvement but I think it
would be helpful to factor in what the weather was last year
and what it could be or should have been or could have been.
For instance, the weekends we have had around here have almost
been like this is Maine or Massachusetts. At 80, 82, very few
thunderstorms. So if there would be a way of factoring that in,
I think it would be helpful.
Mr. Mead. In the Eastern United States this year there has
been a six percent reduction in what they call significant
meteorological events, which are hazardous to aircraft. There
is no question that when you have one of these events that it
slows the system down no matter what you are doing otherwise.
So those are down. But you recall the discussion earlier about
the importance of capturing causal data for these delays and
the need to put the system in place. A more informed,
quantitative answer to your question will be possible once that
system is in place.
model enhancement
Mr. Wolf. That was the other thing. Is there anything else
that you should be doing to make this model fairer? Is there
anything else that is being left out, factors that you all know
that we do not know, or that somebody out there knows that if
that were factored in the numbers would not be quite as
improving as they are? Is there anything else out there?
Ms. Garvey. I do not think so, Congressman. I think what
would be interesting, and I do not know if we can do it, but I
think we can. It would be interesting to run the model with
last year's weather, but take into account some of the
procedural changes we have made and some of the improvements we
have made to see if last year might even have been better had
we had some of those procedures in place.
Mr. Wolf. That would be helpful.
[The information follows:]
The FAA has asked Mitre/CAASD to perform an analysis to
determine what the impact of last year's weather would have had
on this year's traffic if the procedural/airspace initiatives
being used this year would have been in place. Because, this
involves extensive modeling, we expect to have this analysis
available to the committee on or about September 5, 2001.
Ms. Garvey. We have, for example, an agreement with Nav
Canada this year that has opened up Canadian airspace to allow
us, in bad weather to use about 200 aircraft.
The military has been wonderful at helping us open up some
of the military airspace.
runway construction permits
Mr. Wolf. That would be helpful if you could do both of
them. I think that would be better.
Secondly, one other question before I make a comment, but
do you have the run stock with regard to runway improvements?
Is there a one stop office that they go to without having to
get a permit here, a permit there? Is it or is it not----
Ms. Garvey. Yes. The answer is yes. There is a one shop----
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. That you go for the whole----
Ms. Garvey. Yes, but I think we will still have a lot of
work to do. In other words, we know what all the programs are.
We have an airport guidance panel that works for you,
everything you have to get at the federal level. Where I think
and where the Secretary is so helpful and will be so helpful is
coordination among the federal agencies. In other words, my
friends in Seattle that have tried so hard to get a runway
through finally got through all the federal process, but at the
end there were some additional issues. We knew that they had to
get the permit. I think what we still need to do is more
coordination at the federal level.
Mr. Wolf. Years ago there was a one stop. It seems to me
that if you had one stop whereby when they came to the FAA,
that window, you then dealt with the Army Corps of Engineers,
if there was a wetlands problem, you dealt with EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency) if there was a problem, you
dealt with whoever the case may be, but a one-stop office in
the Federal Aviation Administration who had that.
Ms. Garvey. That is a great suggestion. We are not there
yet. We know what the issues are and what the permits are, but
we have not been able to coordinate that. We have really just
been dealing with that offer and the Secretary has really been
very helpful at identifying some of the other key agencies to
work with.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, Congressman. You are absolutely right
about needing to consolidate, a place to go to have an advocate
that helps move people through the federal maze. I will tell
you that President Bush has issued an Executive Order exactly
on the point that you are discussing now on the land
infrastructure and major energy related infrastructure
improvements so that through the Council on Environmental
Quality we have--I attended my first meeting representing the
Transportation Department a week ago or so--an organization and
an effort to try and identify major projects and move them
through the pipeline.
At the Department we have consolidated the Department's
resources in one shop, but we have more to do still to be an
advocate within the federal government for moving the various
parts of the approval process together in a coherent and
simultaneous fashion.
So we are having conversations in the Administration about
the appropriate processes we can use. I have talked to my
counterpart at the EPA, for example, about this as an issue. So
it is absolutely on point and very important.
Mr. Wolf. A last question, and it is not a question, it is
almost a statement. Again, Mr. Chairman, when you were not here
I just said I want to congratulate you and the staff and the
subcommittee for having this hearing and doing it on a
continual basis because there have been many times that you
have an oversight hearing and then everyone goes away and
everything is submitted for the record, and sometimes it is not
and there is no followup. So by having a regular series of
these oversights, it does require that. So I want to
congratulate you.
Also, I congratulate the members of the panel for the
significant, or what appears to be significant progress. We
asked if we could run them based on the weather pattern that we
have had in the past to see if that would have made any
difference. Ms. Garvey is going to see what the weather was
last year, and if you had not made the changes that were made,
would it have made a difference from last year.
I think there is an opportunity--my intention is that the
Administration ought to seize the initiative on maybe
modernizing or streamlining the FAA. In 1996 the committee did
give full authority with regard to procurement, with hiring. My
sense is, and this can be controversial, but that maybe the FAA
ought to be an independent agency, set up similar to NASA,
still under this subcommittee's jurisdiction. But together in a
certain way--and I would urge you, and nobody has to answer
this, but Ms. Garvey, this is your last year. You have an
opportunity to be bold and creative and show initiative and
nobody can do anything to you, you know, I do not think anybody
can be that critical of you so you have an opportunity.
Sometimes in the last year you can be bold and kind of try
things.
Also I think with regard to the Administration. This is an
opportunity. Secretary Card is now at the White House,
understands this probably as well as anybody that has been in
the White House having been the Secretary. Secretary Mineta
having been up here for so many years, understands the problem
and the circumstances.
I really think it all comes together with Mr. Mineta and
Mr. Card and Ms. Garvey, and Mr. Bennett, you have been at the
department in the past, and maybe see if there could not be
something that is so creative and so different.
I have a piece of legislation, it is not going to pass, we
set up a base closing commission concept where by 21-25 people
connected to the industry, somebody from every area, comes
together and fashions a plan, sends it up to the Congress with
almost an up or down vote, similar to what we have done on base
closing whereby the Congress has to either take it or has to
leave it.
But I would urge the Administration that the changes have
been a good impetus. This is very, very important. Mr. Rogers
is very active, you have to know why.
One of my children lives up in New York City. It seems the
flight that they generally take on Sunday out of Dulles Airport
is almost always late, and many times it never goes. I am not
going to mention the airlines here, but I think----
Mr. Rogers. Tell us who it is. [Laughter.]
Mr. Wolf [continuing]. Later.
To have that information just is very, very important, and
as Mr. Rogers in the marketplace, I mean if he is told at the
time he is buying, 40 percent of the time, 43 percent,the
flight does not go or it is late, maybe he will clearly leave
the first one out Monday morning or do something else. But I
would urge the Administration, the window of opportunity is
closing. Ms Garvey has how many more months?
Ms. Garvey. Actually, it is a year today. [Laughter.]
Mr. Wolf. When I was in the Army I had, in my Army hat I
had all the days of my last month, and I would get up in the
morning and strike it, and it was very good just to knock it
off, another day. Are you doing that at home?
Mr. Serrano. I was going to ask if you still have that hat?
Mr. Wolf. Yeah, but it does not fit anymore.
But this is your last year and you really could do a great,
great service and I think it would be appreciated. Not in a
negative way, but in a positive way. And I think the department
with the President talking about the economy, talking about all
of these things, and with Mr. Card and Mr. Mineta and yourself,
I think you ought to seize the initiative, and I think the
opportunity to do it will sort of run out at the end of this
year.
So I would urge you to think about being bold and creative,
and let this be an opportunity and all of you together, Mr.
Rogers, you have all forgotten more about this issue than he
knows, but collectively put your heads together and really try
and do something dramatic and dynamic that would really make
both for safety, for scheduling, for on time, for all of that,
to really make it good for the economy and good for the
passengers.
I would throw a challenge down to you that you do that.
Otherwise I think we make incremental progress, but as you
know, runway incursions. Two years ago we came to that big
thing at the Washington Hilton, now runway incursions are up.
So something bold I think can make all that work.
Thank you for your testimony, and I appreciate Mr. Rogers
having this series of hearings and I hope he continues because
it just forces, it is like a hot compress on a boil. It just
forces it to come out and for people to have to address these
issues not only one time but on a continuing basis.
Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it is great to
have you back in your old haunts over here. And thanks for the
nice compliments.
Mr. Sabo was interrupted earlier.
CONTROLLER WORKFORCE
Mr. Sabo. Well thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I just had one further question. Maybe, as the Chairman
indicated, he would like some dialogue, and that relates to the
question of our future controller work force that Mr. Carr
raised and projections for a significant need for new
controllers in the near future. I am just curious how you would
react, Ms. Garvey.
Is the need going to be as quick and great as Mr. Carr is
suggesting? And do we have the capacity to get those people
trained and on board pursuant to what may or may not happen?
Ms. Garvey. Exactly. Congressman, actually we spent a lot
of time during May with folks who work with us on this issue.
We are in sync up to the year 2005. Our numbers are pretty
solid together. In other words, we have looked at it and I
think our numbers are pretty much in sync. I think beyond that
we had some differences, but we think we can, and we are,
monitoring it very closely and have opportunities with it.
We are a little bit concerned about next year. We want very
much to work with the committee and make sure that the members
that are included in next year's budget will adequately be able
to deal with what we anticipate will be necessary numbers.
You are right, the critical piece for us is the training.
So every time we look at hiring, we also have to look at how
much time we need for training. When can we run them through
Oklahoma, so on and so forth.
We would like to work very much with the committees, and
continue obviously the work with the controllers to make sure
we are monitoring staffing needs carefully.
The controllers have done a terrific job of joining us in
all of the technology committees we have on modernization. It
also means a lot of those controllers who were ordinarily on
the boards are now very intricately involved in modernization.
So those members are necessary. We have to manage that and keep
up with that.
CONTROLLER ATTRITION
Mr. Sabo. How do you sort out how many--eligible to retire
and actually retiring is two different things.
Ms. Garvey. John may have a different assessment of this,
but from our perspective, what we generally do is look at what
has been the historical data and use that as the base because
in many ways we are really just making estimates. Not only just
track it, give people plenty of opportunity to let us know
ahead of time and track it as we go. So far we have been close
to, as I understand it, to what our projections have been.
John, if you have something else to add----
Mr. Carr. Actually I do, thank you. We do not use
historical data because we do not believe that it is accurately
reflected. It is a different workforce now than maybe five or
ten or 15 or certainly 20 years ago, and the only historical
data the FAA can really refer to with respect to controllers is
20 years old, because 20 years ago everybody who does what I am
doing got fired.
So historical perspectives we do not believe accurately
reflect the changing workforce, 401Ks, people with smartness
about their own retirements and their own futures.
We surveyed the work force, and asked them what the
difference was between estimated and actual and eligible,
because we acknowledge that there is a difference between
eligible and actual. And as the administrator correctly
described, our numbers are fairly well in sync until about 2005
and then our numbers diverge. We believe more people would hire
than the administration currently does.
The only other thing I would probably add is that air
traffic controllers are very much like runways. First of all,
the more of them you have the happier I am.
Second of all, you cannot make one overnight. It takes
between three and five years to make either a good runway or an
air traffic controller. The training begins at the lowest
possible level, and there are many casualties of that training
process along the way. At one time the larger facilities like
New York and Chicago had attrition rates of about 80 percent.
It is just not an easy thing to do in those large terminal
environments.
So we are concerned that in light of the fact that we have
undertaken choke point sectors, national airspace redesign
initiatives, participation of 65 different technical work
groups and things of that nature, we are concerned that we
continue to funnel in a pipeline of controllers that will allow
for even perhaps an overstaaffing as a bubble towards that
coming wave of controller retirements.
The collective bargaining agreement which we entered into
with the FAA in 1998 is a five year agreement. We stand by the
agreement we signed. We probably would not enter again into a
written numerical value of the number of controllers we will
need five years hence because that was not wise on our part.
AIR TRAFFIC OPERATIONS
Mr. Mead. Mr. Sabo.
Mr. Sabo. Yes.
Mr. Mead. A wild card here is that as a result of the
controllers agreement, the controllers got a substantial
increase in pay. And the wild card is that a number of the
controllers will have their high pay in soon. And we do not
know how many of those people will say well, I have got my high
pay now, I am going to go. It is much much more than we would
otherwise have gotten.
I would add that I think the administrator makes a good
point about what is ahead in the immediate term. They do have a
pipeline of controllers that they will be hiring.
Secondly, you do have some safety valves available. For
example, right now there is a mandatory retirement age of 56
years old. I do not know why you cannot be an air traffic
controller after 56 years old if you want to be.
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Sabo, can I just provide a clarification
on a question we were discussing on the AFSCME contract?
Mr. Sabo. Sure.
Mr. Jackson. The contract is before the Fair Labor
Practices Board for adjudication. The meeting that I mentioned
next week is an internal meeting to try to make sure that we
are moving this process along. We have not been advised on a
hearing date for a formal hearing on that.
The other question you asked about was whether the
employees covered under this negotiation had received a raise
this year. They did, I am told, receive the basic federal raise
that everyone in the federal government got, and then any
increment above that that might result from a negotiation would
be above and beyond what the basic----
Mr. Sabo. But the basic pay increase of federal employees
they had. Thank you.
Mr. Jackson. Yes.
Mr. Sabo. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a good
hearing.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Before you proceed, you may not have noticed
that we are doing the lunch hour here. We do plan to finish
fairly quickly so we can get this over with so you can be gone,
rather than come back after a lunch, if that is okay.
Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It has been I think, since March 15th, it is just a little
over four months since the first of the discussions on this,
and this is now the third. And I would say this has been an
enormous learning process for me and I suspect other members
who are on this side of the table.
I also want to echo what Congressman Wolf, our former
chairman had said. I really want to commend the chairman for
bringing this process together. I think for us on this side it
is an enormous learning process because we rarely get a chance
to see a lot of the different facets of the same problem being
talked about by the key people that are there.
We do have a lot of experience, speaking of something that
Mr. Carr mentioned, at herding cats, sometimes sheep, sometimes
we are the herders, sometimes we are the herdees on this side.
But it is a learning process and it has been a good one.
On your side I think it has been, I suspect looking at it,
I think it has been both a learning process and a problem-
solving process. And I think I am going to characterize this in
a way--and Ms. Garvey, I will get around to the question here
sometime.
You I think are the universal joint in this process of
actually making things go in a problem solving effort, and I
want to comment you very strongly for what has been
accomplished in these last several months.
It merely takes a will to do it and a the drive that has
been provided by the Chairman to do it.
Now just let me say, just one example about the learning
process. Early on in this process I thought disbursal in choke
points, particularly, and I used the example way back then of
the New York city area because I know where Islip and where
White Plains and where Stewart and so forth, and Teterboro are.
I am not so sure that that is such a good idea as I listen
more and have talked with some other people about it because
goodness, one might think so, but if you are going to disburse,
then you have probably 359 to 360 passengers for all regional
jets going into an area to disburse what might otherwise be
headed into a 150 person jet or whatever going into one of
those, taking that city that i know the geography of a little
bit, might be a lot more expensive for the airline, might be
considerably more costly in terms of fuel, and obviously in the
total amount of traffic that is going to be there. It becomes
more difficult in a variety of different kinds of ways.
I suspect, and somewhere you may want to comment, different
of you may want to comment on it if you have a chance, but I
suspect that the disbursal of general aviation in some of the
smaller hubs might be a lot easier where the individual
decision is on the basis of hey, we finally figured out that it
is easier to change your own usage patterns that have been
there for a long period of time than discover from an
individual's point of view that you recognize and conserve your
interests that are by disbursal outlook a little bit up to
general aviation.
I am never quite sure how much of general aviation is
involved in all of these delays and what you are doing at some
of the airports. It undoubtedly is in some. I should imagine it
would not be very much involved in the biggest airports because
we did not expect that general aviation would be in doubt. But
that is just of an evolution of my own thought process in this
learning process.
I wanted to ask you, Ms. Garvey, and Mr. Sabo has already
covered some of the grounds that relate to professional
workforce issues as well, I wanted to ask you a more general
kind of a question.
Clearly we have good data for the first part of this year.
Some of it may be weather and some of it may be better labor
relations. You have indicated some initiatives and in a general
broad way, the initiatives are flight phase and choke point
initiatives.
The choke point initiatives were 21 different initiatives,
and then the national operations plan. Well, I want to ask you,
what maybe three of those things, which ones do you think of
the initiatives under the flight plan, the free flight or the
choke point 21 might have been most significant? You might say,
you might even tell me that you have been praying for better
weather, and that might be very important. It might improve all
of our use of that medium.
But clearly the National Operations Plan which has to do
with long range infrastructure cannot have had anything
significant to do with this.
I want you to think what might be the things that have been
most significant of what you have been that universal joint in.
You gave also a list of six sort of generalized areas that
need more work. Are there some specific things in that that you
think of as most promising? Just something for your thought
process here, but what seem to have been the most helpful
things, the most important things in producing that if it was
not just prayer and good weather. And then what you think might
be most promising of the relatively specific sorts of things
that you are working on in this universal joint process.
Ms. Garvey. I will give you a quick reaction. But I may
think about it and come back to you later.
The choke point initiatives that focus on the New York area
have been in some ways certainly among the most promising
because that is such a difficult area for us. I think that sort
of clustering of initiatives has been extremely helpful.
The second one is perhaps a little bit harder to quantify,
but I have to say I really do think the kind of collaboration,
the collaboration you are having with the airlines from the
command center. That conversation that is happening every two
hours, sometimes even going around the clock, 24 hours a day. I
think those have--because what it has resulted in is very
specific, agreed upon plans, and their actions are entirely
going to be handled today. I think that real time collaboration
has been extraordinarily helpful.
Congressman Sabo mentioned a little bit earlier the issue
about how long are the ground stops. The implication is the
fuel, if you are in a holding pattern or whatever. He was
right.
Rather than our making those decisions, we are doing it
very much in collaboration with the airlines. Do we want a
ground stop here? Do we want to put people into a holding
pattern? Do we want to try to fly lower altitudes.
The collaboration with the airlines which I is really
unprecedented and is absolutely critical.
By the way, I think one of the most interesting processes,
to critique the people after a bad day. After a terrible day,
it wasn't going well, they get on the phone and yell at each
other. What did we screw up on? What should we do differently?
It's pretty open. I have heard those conversations, I have read
the transcripts. They are very open, very direct, and very
productive.
I think the third piece that is the most critical and has
the most promising operation, because it is all of that
commitment. In the past there may have been nothing great about
putting out wonderful pools of technology that are associated
primarily with the government. This is everyone's commitment.
It is broken down into short term, so a lot of the choke points
or free flight that we have talked about can be included in
this. It has got mid-term issues for all of us and long term.
So I think that holds the greatest hope for the future. What is
critical is our standard course as an industry. The coalition
in a consensus has expressed some competitive interest to
industry. It is going to be absolutely essential that it be
maintained.
data collection
Mr. Olver. Just briefly, you have kind of pushed really the
things that have worked, that produced the most of what has
happened in the past and what might be the most promising in
the future.
I suspect that just getting that data, which was all
available, has produced now some of the embarrassment that the
airports and the airlines end up with things getting worse
again unless there is very good reason. That is a first cut at
data. One obviously needs good data in order to do any good
planning.
My guess is that if DOT finally gets through this process
of deciding what it is that are going to be the data collection
procedures, the comparable data in the case of the actual
reasons for delay, you will find that has a big, positive
effect in the future, because I suspect that again the airports
and the airlines and all concerned in the problem solving
aspect will find that they do not want to be caught on the
short end of whatever is the particular criterion that is being
set forward.
Ms. Garvey. Absolutely.
Mr. Olver. I do think that that will be a very good driver
of good behavior all the way around.
It took me a long time to get to a question, and I will
pass back, Mr. Chairman. I know you would like to move on.
delay reporting requirements
Mr. Rogers. Well, thank you Mr. Olver.
Let me ask just a couple of questions in closing, and then
we will have a little ceremony.
I noticed a briefing paper that DOT or FAA had which
describes the three categories of delays or cancellations that
is being discussed, and I assume this is the route that you
intend to go.
One of the three categories that airlines would be required
to report and which FAA or DOT would then publicize broadly.
One, air carriers control problem; two, extreme weather; or
three, national aviation system which would be a closed runway
or a taxiway at an airport, air traffic control equipment
problems, normal but disruptive weather patterns, volume of
traffic in the system exceeds capacity, and that type of thing.
Air carrier control would be unavailability of an airplane
because of maintenance or other operating problems.
Is this where we are headed?
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir. This is the result of the pilot
work.
Mr. Rogers. So this is what we will expect eventually the
airlines to be required to report routinely.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Suppose an airline says on Flight 43 to Chicago
out of Dallas we had a problem backing off the gate because,
the controllers would not let us out because of some problem on
the runway. And the controllers say no, no, no, it is the
weather. And the airport people say no, the pilot did not show
up. How do we know who is telling the truth?
Mr. Carr. I am, sir. [Laughter.]
Mr. Rogers. Is there going to be a referee of this system
so we can have some confidence in the data that we get?
Mr. Mead. I do not want the Office of Inspector General to
be a permanent referee on this system, but I think initially
that will happen. The example you described can be expected to
happen. Weather is a good example. Somebody will say it is a
weather caused delay. Actually the weather prevented the plane
from being at Airport B and at Airport B the airline pulled up
an alternate aircraft and the alternate aircraft was broken or
had a maintenance problem. It is sort of a chicken or egg
thing.
The process is going to need a mechanism to sort through,
to adjudicate differences of view. And that is what I rather
hoped we would have been through by this summer, but we are
still going to have to go through that phase because it will
happen.
data collection validation
Mr. Rogers. How are we going to police this thing?
Mr. Mead. I do not know how we are going to police it
exactly. But if I were in charge of it, I would have a
committee set up that would screen the data and that would try
to resolve data discrepancies. Then I would make sure that you
had your inspector general audit that process periodically.
I think you are going to need a permanent mechanism to
synthesize the data and to resolve disagreements. Right now,
since we do not have a system in place, we do not really know
whether or the extent to which the disagreements will occur.
Mr. Rogers. We have not come very far then. We are still
going to be blaming each other?
Ms. Garvey. Mr. Chairman, if I could, just speaking from
the pilots experience, we are running into some of these. But
it has been interesting to me, but I do not think we have run
into as many as we thought. People actually have been pretty
good. We have four good airlines who are reporting information.
We are looking at it now on a daily basis with them, so in
a sense we are dealing with those issues. The Inspector General
has a very excellent staff person who is working with us on
this and has been helping sort through those. I think your
point about having a process is right. Mr. Mead's suggestion
about a subcommittee of three to resolve some of the
differences, is something that perhaps could be the topic of
the Deputy Secretary's next meeting.
Mr. Jackson. These are all particulars about how to make a
process work on a routine basis and guarantee that the outcome
is reliable and accurate and all of these points are well
taken. Your question, sir, absolutely on point, and it is part
of what we have to address in a final way in a rulemaking
process so that it is very clear how we are going to adjudicate
and audit. I welcome the Inspector General's willingness to
help us keep the system honest.
I have been told that from BTS' perspective which has been
the sort of central point of this pilot exercise, that they
feel the conversation back and forth amongst the parties has
been robust and constructive and that the amount of disputes
have been moderately small.
So it is a very important point to focus on. That is part
of what the rulemaking has to do.
causes of delay
Mr. Rogers. Well, I mean, the last problem I had a couple
of days ago or whenever, I think I got all three reasons from
the desk. It's a weather problem, well, no, we had a crew
member that did not report for work. All of this to the same
flight, the same airline. The third reason, I forgot what it
was, but it was----
Voice: Volume?
Mr. Rogers. Yeah, it was air traffic control volume.
Whatever that means. And I am a consumer out here, and we are
getting told everything, and people have no confidence in what
they are being told and they get mad and frustrated and the
ulcer level is increasing. We have to get a handle on this.
If we do not have a system in place that forces an answer
to who really caused that delay that is objective and is fair,
then the flying public will not have the same information out
there, and that is where we come in.
Mr. Merlis.
Mr. Merlis. Mr. Chairman, I think you have identified the
reason we are so supportive of this process. Because using two
of the three and not knowing the circumstances, if a pilot or
crew member is late because of weather, which category does it
go in? We want someone to tell us. We will put it in whatever
category you want it to go in. But both of those may have been
accurate. We were short a pilot because he did not get in on
the inbound plane because of weather. Tell us which one you
want and we will put it in that category and we will disclose
it.
Mr. Rogers. Good point.
Okay, you are going to work on that.
Mr. Jackson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carr. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rogers. Yes.
air traffic operations
Mr. Carr. I would also like to mention that, and I
neglected to mention it when Mr. Sabo asked the question about
his flight, because it is extraordinarily difficult to describe
these circumstances so that it is easily understandable, but I
would like to extend an invitation to any member of the
subcommittee or their staffs who would like to visit any of the
air traffic control facilities right here in the Washington
area. National is right down the street, Dulles or the Center
out in Leesburg.
I think it would be helpful not only on days like today
when the sun is out and everything is running relatively
smoothly, but also on a critical weather day when not only the
controllers but the airport operators and the pilots as well
are really struggling to sort out how to get from Point A to
Point B and it descends into herding cats quite quickly.
The invitation is open any time, and I would be happy to
facilitate any one on the subcommittee or their staffs in
making those visits.
Mr. Rogers. We appreciate that, and no doubt some of us
will take you up on it in due course of time. We appreciate the
invitation and we will try and do it without being in your way.
Anyone else, anything before we begin to wrap this up here?
[No response.]
airline delay problems
Mr. Rogers. Again, let me thank you for another appearance.
As Mr. Olver said, this is a terrific education experience for
us at least because when we talk about, focus on airline delays
it seems like we are slashing across the whole body of air
traffic because you encounter all of the difficulties that each
of you have in your respective roles when we talk about that
one topic.
So it is a good education for all of us and I hope some of
you on other parts of the industry that perhaps you do not
experience on a day to day basis.
But we started out with these hearings with the focus of
trying to solve or help solve the airline delay problem that is
infecting the country and causing so much turmoil.
I think we are beginning to identify the choke points in
the process. It seems to me like we are making some progress
for probably a variety of reasons. But I would hope that these
hearings contribute somewhat to the betterment.
We still have a long ways to go but we are beginning to
make some progress, and at least we can see whether or not we
are making an impact.
So congratulations on some good work, and this will not be
the last meeting of this group. You all seem to enjoy your
company and we want to facilitate your friendship. [Laughter.]
airline delay progress report
We will provide you another opportunity one of these days
to get back together and celebrate.
Now, it is hard to judge what is going on as it relates to
the overall picture, but we started out with this rating system
and I think we need to keep it up.
So Rich, if you will help me out here.
The Secretary's office, Mr. Jackson, we are going to let
you stand in for the Secretary in this procedure.
On your work to establish the process to balance the flight
schedules with airport capacity, we want to give you a smiley
face because you are making some progress there. We want to
reward good work. You are not there yet, so a star is not in
order, but a smiley face certainly is and we congratulate you
for that.
Ms. Garvey, we want to continue to encourage you on the
choke point initiative and the ability to measure the results
so we want to give you another smiley face to join the one you
got in May on that point. And also the same for number three,
your Free Flight Phase I and Phase II, that is on track. That
is a major initiative that we think will be of great importance
and you have it on track. We want to give you a smiley.
You have in fact accomplished now the agreement with our
airlines on the national operations plan, number four. That is
a fact. And for that you get a star. And you know we rarely
give out stars here.
And your streamlining of the approval procedures for
airports, number five, we want to continue to encourage you
with a smiley face on that one.
Now Mr. Mead, we want to give you a star for continuing to
monitor the progress of all of these things, and you are sort
of our resident critic, if you will, to keep us on track, so we
want to reward you with a star for that ongoing effort, it is
not done. As well as number three, the monitoring of the
construction costs for runways and the schedule status, 1 a
star as well.
And a smiley face for continuing, number four, to monitor
the FAA's progress in meeting its obligations, keeping track of
its promises.
Mr. Merlis, we want to commend you for your group's putting
in place the recommendations of the delay reporting advisory
committee. For that we give you a smiley face.
And this pains me, but we are going to have to give out the
first frowny face on number three. In our very original hearing
we were told that you would do this immediately. That we would,
that you would begin immediately to transfer the aircraft
position and delayed data directly to gate agents so that the
public could see that the aircraft has not even landed in
Chicago yet, or that it is delayed 45 minutes.
We were led to believe and promised that that data would be
relayed directly to gate agents across the country, and here we
are five months later, or 90 days later--I am sorry months
later, and we are told that that process will be agreed upon
within 90 days. That is just not acceptable. So I hate to do
this, but a frowny face.
Mr. Barclay, we want to reward you for the effort to
advocate FAA's ability to provide the support staff to
airports. You advocated strongly and the committee agreed that
airports ought to be able to pay for and provide staff to help
the FAA speed up, process applications for airports. We wrote
that into our bill, as a matter of fact, on your recommendation
and others. Unfortunately, it as temporarily stricken out on
the floor, but the idea still lives, and for that we give you a
star. A very well deserved one.
We want to give you a smiley face for your number three. As
an advocate for scheduling committees.
And for airports now getting better information out to
their customers, as you say, through the CNN monitors and other
displays in the airports, we think we are seeing some really
good progress there and we want to give you a star for that.
That is an important one.
And then Captain Dolan, you will need to share this with
Captain Woerth. We want to give you a star, give Captain Woerth
a star, for developing a stronger alliance with NATCA.
But on number three, after five months we were told,
urgently, that the airline dispatchers would be brought into
this alliance, and five months later still no action taken. WE
are told a meeting is being planned. Do you want to protest?
Mr. Dolan. No, sir. We signed the formal letter cosigned by
our colleagues at NATCA with the dispatchers, that they are
members of the alliance now. We had scheduled a meeting on the
5th of July, had already been scheduled before that was
completed, and they were unable to attend the meeting. Maybe I
was not clear on that.
Mr. Rogers. But you have signed a letter and the
dispatchers are----
Mr. Dolan. They have agreed to participate in the liaison
effort, yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. And they have signed the letter with you?
Mr. Dolan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rogers. Can we seek the letter? Can you file it for the
record for us?
Mr. Dolan. Absolutely.
Mr. Rogers. Please do that.
Okay, we will withhold action on that item then until we
have had a chance to work on it.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rogers. Now then Mr. Carr, on your number one item,
monitoring other ideas for safety impact, we want to give you a
star on that.
Mr. Carr. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. Good job.
And obviously your number two, request for more controller
staffing, I know that was difficult for you to do. [Laughter.]
Mr. Carr. I do what I can.
Mr. Rogers. That is really sacrificing. We are going to
give you a star for that.
If any of you have any problems with these let us know and
we will take it under review.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Closing Remarks
Mr. Rogers Thank you for your work, being here today. I
know this is a tough, tough issue for you. Airlines, airports
are besieged with tons of people, and equipment is expensive
and complicated and people obviously are concerned about
safety, and rightly so.
Sometimes we are dealing with procedures that date back to
the Wright brothers. That could stand some modernization. Yet
government agencies are very reluctant to shake the status quo
and yet we have got to. So I am hoping that the separation
standards can be worked on, that we get this new equipment on
board as quickly as we can, that the controllers accept the
equipment, and that the airlines and airports will begin to
disburse super hubs into surrounding areas in order to relieve
the traffic.
There is no way that the building of runways is going to
solve this problem. It takes so long to build them; and number
two, by the time you get it built the capacity is going to be
again under challenge.
So I suggest to you that there is lots of concrete laying
out there unused in these adjacent cities that airlines we
expect to utilize. I do not think it is fair for the airlines
who devised the hub system, to then come to us and say you have
got a capacity problem so we want zillions of dollars to build
a new runway. And our hub city, while you have runways that we
built laying unused within a couple or few miles of that
airport. So we expect disbursal of capacity. And to utilize the
assets that we have already on the ground ready and paid for.
Is it Belleville, Illinois that is this side of St. Louis?
The St. Louis airport, we are having to build a $2.3 billion
runway and yet there is a beautiful new airport at Belleville,
Illinois, maybe 10 or 15 miles or so, on the plains of Illinois
that is sitting there practically unused, terrific capacity,
soon to be linked up with a metro commuter line that we are
paying for to link up that airport with the city and the other
main airport.
I do not see why TWA does not use that airport, and others.
But they expect us to spend $2.3 billion for one runway at
their regular airport while it sits out there unused as we
talk.
Thank you for coming. We will see you next time.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
W I T N E S S E S
----------
Page
Barclay, Charles............................................1, 471, 643
Barnhart, Cynthia................................................ 143
Carmody, Carol................................................... 243
Carr, J.S...................................................1, 471, 643
DeBerry, Keith................................................... 243
Dolan, Captain Dennis............................................ 643
Donohue, G.L..................................................... 143
Eickenberg, A.C.................................................. 243
ElSawy, Amr...................................................... 143
Fisher, J.P...................................................... 243
Garvey, J.F............................................1, 243, 471, 643
Hansman, John.................................................... 143
Jackson, M.P..................................................... 643
Kerner, Robert................................................... 243
Mead, K.M...................................................1, 471, 643
Merlis, E.A.................................................1, 471, 643
Woerth, Captain D.E..............................................1, 471
I N D E X
----------
Airline Delays and Aviation System Capacity
March 15, 2001
Page
AAAE:
AAAE--Responsibility for Delays.............................. 88
AAAE Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem................... 131
ALPA:
ALPA--Responsibility for Delays.............................. 85
ALPA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem................... 135
ATA:
ATA--Responsibility for Delays............................... 87
ATA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problems................... 132
AIR-21 Runway Construction Funding............................... 95
Air Traffic:
Air Traffic Congestion....................................... 118
Air Traffic Congestion Response.............................. 102
Airline:
Airline Competition.......................................... 108
Airline Customer Service..................................... 125
Airline Delay Relationship to Safety......................... 94
Airline Incentives........................................... 109
Airline Monopoly............................................. 111
Airline Profit, Competition, Hubs............................ 123
Airline Schedules............................................ 124
Local Airline Traffic........................................ 109
Airport:
Airport Grant Funding for Hub Airports....................... 96
Airport Infrastructure Projects.............................. 120
Minneapolis and Detroit Airports............................. 128
Pittsburgh Airport........................................... 130
Stewart Airport.............................................. 124
Airport Capacity:
Airport Capacity--Landings and Takeoffs...................... 91
Airport Capacity Utilization...............................103, 107
Capacity Benchmarks.......................................... 105
Biography:
Charles M. Barclay, President, American Association of
Airport Executives......................................... 53
Cynthia Barnhart, Associate Professor of Civil and
Environmental Engineering and the Engineering Systems
Division, MIT.............................................. 175
John S. Carr, President, National Air Traffic Controllers
Association................................................ 73
Jane F. Garvey, FAA Administrator............................ 11
R. John Hansman, Jr., Professor of Aeronautics &
Astronautics, MIT.......................................... 206
Kenneth M. Mead, Inspector General........................... 39
Edward A. Merlis, Senior Vice President, Air Transport
Association of America..................................... 66
Captain Duane E. Woerth, President, Air Line Pilots
Association................................................ 81
Choke Points...................................................110, 129
Competitive Pricing.............................................. 106
Conclusion....................................................... 139
Closing remarks.................................................. 241
Delays:
Airline Delay Relationship to Safety......................... 94
Arrival Delays............................................... 130
Community Role in Airline Delays............................. 141
Collection of Delay Data..................................... 115
Definition of Delays..................................112, 113, 117
Delays....................................................... 126
AAAE Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem................... 131
ALPA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem................... 135
ATA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem.................... 132
FAA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem.................... 137
Five Solutions to the Airline Delay Problem.................. 89
IG Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem..................... 138
Industrial Role in Airline Delays............................ 100
International Delays......................................... 111
NATCA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem.................. 136
Progress on Airline Delays and Cancellations................. 101
Safety Related Delays and Runway Capacity.................... 93
Timeframe for Delay Standardized System...................... 116
FAA:
FAA--Responsibility for Delays............................... 84
FAA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem.................... 137
HUB Competition.................................................. 126
Increased Flying Times........................................... 105
Inspector General:
IG--Responsibility for Delays................................ 83
IG Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem..................... 138
Introduction of Witnesses........................................2, 143
Mega Mergers..................................................... 101
NATCA:
NATCA--Responsibility for Delays............................. 85
NATCA Five Steps to Solve the Delay Problem.................. 136
New Runway Construction in Chicago-Boston-New York Region........ 96
Opening Remarks:
Chairman Rogers..............................................1, 143
George Mason University Opening Remarks...................... 209
MIT Professor Barnhart Opening Remarks....................... 158
MIT Professor Hansman Opening Remarks........................ 177
Mitre Corporation Opening Remarks............................ 144
Opening Statement:
Inspector General Opening Statement.......................... 12
Opening Statement of FAA Administrator....................... 3
Opening Statement of Mitre Corporation....................... 149
Opening Statement of President Air Line Pilots Association... 74
Opening Statement of President American Association of
Airport Executives......................................... 40
Opening Statement of President National Air Traffic
Controllers Association.................................... 67
Opening Statement of Professor Barnhart, MIT................. 161
Opening Statement of Professor Donohue, George Mason
University................................................. 214
Opening Statement of Professor Hansman, MIT.................. 181
Opening Statement of Vice President Air Transport Association
of America................................................. 56
Partnership...................................................... 117
Passenger Bill of Rights......................................... 101
Passenger Only Airports.......................................... 92
Peak Demands..................................................... 91
Peak Demands and Noise........................................... 90
Public Service................................................... 114
Regulation for Passenger Compensation............................ 134
Runway Planning and Development.................................. 123
Separation Standards............................................. 139
Whistleblower Protection......................................... 138
Witnesses........................................................1, 143
Federal Aviation Administration Management Issues
March 28, 2001
Air Carrier Reporting Pilot Program.............................. 404
Air Taxi Operations Report....................................... 416
Air Traffic:
Air Traffic Compensation Plan Briefing....................... 333
Air Traffic Control Compensation............................. 313
Air Traffic Control Operational Errors....................... 261
Air Traffic Growth Projections............................... 411
Air Transportation Oversight System.......................262, 286, 441
Airline:
Airline Operations........................................... 426
Airline Participation in Pilot Program....................... 414
Airline Schedules............................................ 417
Joint Industry/Government Meetings on Airline Schedules...... 417
Ranking Airlines............................................. 407
Airport:
Airport Growth Versus Projections............................ 413
Airport Improvement Program Obligations...................... 434
Airport Movement Area Safety System........................260, 437
Capital City Airport, Lansing Michigan.....................458, 459
Airspace Redesign................................................ 435
Airworthiness Directives......................................... 455
Biography:
Carol Carmody, NTSB.......................................... 264
Keith D. BeBerry, PASS....................................... 292
Arthur C. Eickenberg, FMA.................................... 311
John P. Fisher, FMA.......................................... 403
Jane F. Garvey, FAA.......................................... 259
Robert Kerner, PASS.......................................... 300
Bonuses........................................................440, 442
Budget Allocation for the Dulles Tower........................... 465
Choke Point Initiatives.......................................... 408
Civil Penalty Violations......................................... 443
Closing Remarks.................................................. 462
Compensation Inequities Impacting Federal Aviation Administration 312
Controller:
CIC Relationship to Operational Errors....................... 453
Controller-in-Charge......................................... 387
Controller in Charge Experience.............................. 434
Controller in Charge Program..........................427, 432, 453
Controller in Charge Training..............................428, 429
Controller Pay............................................... 448
Controller Supervisor Ratio.................................. 422
Controllers Recognition at Seattle Tower..................... 260
Delays:
Causes of Delay.......................................405, 425, 426
Data Validation............................................406, 407
Definition of Delays.............................246, 404, 414, 423
Weather Delays............................................... 409
Department of Transportation Pay................................. 423
Eastern Region Towers............................................ 466
Emory Freight Flight 17 Crash.................................... 456
English Language Proficiency..................................... 415
Environmental Streamlining.....................................447, 451
FAA:
FAA Management and Supervisor Oversight....................385, 386
FAA Management of STARS Program.............................. 446
FAA Organization............................................. 436
FAA Reform.................................................247, 301
FAA Work Force and Mission................................... 246
FAA and Industry Relations................................... 443
Flight Standards:
Flight Standards Travel and Training......................... 285
Flight Standards Work Force.................................. 285
FMA Recommendations.............................................. 387
Free Flight...................................................... 418
George Washington and George Mason Aviation Institute............ 469
Ground Radar at Reagan National................................458, 463
Improvements to Dulles Air Traffic Control....................... 468
En Route Inspections............................................. 293
Inspector:
Inspector Staffing.........................................293, 452
Inspector Travel and Training................................ 418
Introduction of Witnesses........................................ 245
Joint Industry/Government Meetings on Airline Schedules.......... 60417
National Performance Review Survey............................... 438
Opening Remarks.................................................. 243
Chairman Rogers.............................................. 243
FAA Opening Remarks.......................................... 246
Opening Remarks of Mr. Sabo.................................. 246
Opening Statement:
Federal Managers Association (Eickenberg) Opening Statement.. 301
Federal Managers Association (Fisher) Opening Statement...... 385
Opening Statement of FAA Administrator....................... 249
NTSB Opening Statement....................................... 260
PASS (DeBerry) Opening Statement............................. 285
PASS (Kerner) Opening Statement.............................. 293
Operational Errors........................................387, 449, 450
Operational Errors at Dulles..................................... 464
Outsourcing...................................................... 422
Pay Disparity.................................................... 301
Performance and Accountability................................... 438
Personnel Reform................................................. 439
Potomac TRACON................................................... 467
Ranking Airlines................................................. 407
Recess........................................................... 429
Regulation and Certification:
Regulation and Certification................................. 441
Regulation and Certification Staffing........................ 454
Runway:
Runway Incursions.....................................247, 410, 414
Runway Incursions and FAA Oversight.......................... 260
Runway Incursion Surface Incidents........................... 448
Safety:
Safer Skies.................................................. 247
Safety Oversight............................................. 453
Seattle Earthquake............................................... 248
Staffing for Busiest Eastern Region Towers....................... 467
Supervisor Ratio................................386, 416, 430, 431, 450
Supervisory Management Risk Factors.............................. 430
Witnesses........................................................ 243
Airline Delays and Aviation System Capacity
May 3, 2001
Accuracy of Data Reporting System................................ 594
Airline:
Airline Delay Solutions Report Card.......................... 637
Airline Delays............................................... 611
Airline Dispatchers Federation............................... 571
Airline Flight Schedules..................................... 599
Airline Progress on Delay Issues............................. 591
Airline Requirement to Report Delay Data..................... 591
Airline Schedule Public Disclosure........................... 590
Airline Schedules Demand Management Actions.................. 597
Airline Scheduling........................................... 605
Airline Voluntary Actions to Reduce Congestion............... 497
Local Government Involvement in Airline Scheduling........... 606
Airport:
LaGuardia Airport............................................ 607
Local Support of Airport Expansion........................... 601
Philadelphia Airport......................................... 608
Action Plan for Top Eight Airports........................... 598
Airport Curfew............................................... 616
Airport Reimbursement for FAA Staff Work..................... 599
Alleviate Peak Demands.......................................... 597
ALPA Delay Commitment..........................................632, 637
Antitrust Immunity.............................................603, 634
Aviation Safety.................................................. 579
Biography:
Charles M. Barclay, President, Association of Airport
Executives................................................. 568
John S. Carr, President, National Air Traffic Controllers
Association................................................ 589
Edward A. Merlis, Senior Vice President, Air Transport
Association................................................ 553
Captain Duane E. Woerth, President, Air Line Pilots
Association................................................ 578
Building Industry Consensus...................................... 572
Boston Runway Expansion Noise Issue.............................. 600
Capacity:
Capacity at Atlanta and Dallas/Forth Worth................... 596
Exceeding Capacity........................................... 595
Capacity Benchmarks:
Capacity Benchmarks........................................475, 638
Capacity Benchmark Report..................................595, 611
Capacity Enhancements at Most Delayed Airports............... 608
Choke Points:
Atlanta and Boston Choke Points.............................. 609
Choke Points................................................. 475
Choke Points New York/New Jersey Area........................ 610
CNN Airport Channel.............................................. 555
Closing.......................................................... 642
Conclusion....................................................... 500
Controller:
ATCS Hiring Requirements for Fiscal Year 2001-2010........... 622
Controller Distribution...................................... 620
Controller Relocation........................................ 633
Controller Staffing........................................579, 619
Controller Work Force Retirement............................. 580
FY 2001 Regional Staffing Allocation--Terminal by Level...... 623
Mandatory Controller Retirement.............................. 632
Delays:
Airline Delay Solutions Report Card.......................... 637
Airline Delays............................................... 611
Airline Progress on Delay Issues............................. 591
Airline Requirement to Report Delay Data..................... 591
Airline Voluntary Actions to Reduce Congestion............... 497
Commitments to solve the Delay Problem....................... 472
Chronically Delayed Flights.................................. 592
Definition of Flight Delays.................................. 495
Delay Definition, Environmental Streamlining Airport Capacity
Projects................................................... 638
Delay Reporting Advisory Commitee............................ 545
Delay Tracking............................................... 495
Delays at San Francisco Airport.............................. 615
Flight Delay Public Disclosure.............................500, 593
Impact of Weather Technology on Delays....................... 634
Information to Customers..................................... 556
Internet Reservation System Flight Delay Report.............. 594
Major Airline Reporting of Delay Data........................ 592
Other Delay initiatives...................................... 495
Tracking Airline Voluntary Actions on Delays and
Cancellations.............................................. 612
Denied Boarding Compensation..................................... 633
Denied Boarding Compensation Program......................... 546
Environmental Streamlining...........................476, 594, 599, 614
Flight Rule on Flight and Duty Time.............................. 617
Flight and Duty Time Limitations................................. 616
Flight Disbursal...............................................609, 614
Boston Flight Disbursal...................................... 610
Free Flight Phase 1 and 2........................................ 476
Free Flight Phase 1........................................579, 618
Free Flight Phase 2.......................................... 632
Herndon Command Center........................................... 545
Identify Capacity Expansion Projects............................. 546
Improve NATCA Liaison............................................ 571
Management Advisory Council Representation....................... 581
Mini Hubs........................................................ 619
National Airspace Redesign....................................... 580
Opening Remarks: Chairman Rogers................................. 471
Opening Statement:
Inspector General Opening Statement.......................... 495
Air Transport Association (ATA) Opening Statement............ 545
Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) Opening Statement......... 571
Airport Executives (AAAE) Opening Statement.................. 554
FAA Opening Statement........................................ 478
National Air Traffic Controllers (NATCA) Opening Statement... 579
Operation Specification Modifications............................ 612
Passenger Facility Charge Cap..................................555, 633
Peak Demands..................................................... 500
Peak Hour Congestion Pricing..................................... 615
Proposed Antitrust Immunity Scheduling Conference..............636, 637
Revenue Diversion................................................ 555
Runway:
Runway Construction.......................................... 500
Runway Expansion at Phoenix.................................. 615
Streamlining Runway Construction............................. 554
RTCA Free Flight Steering Committee.............................. 571
Schedule Comparison.............................................. 500
Scheduling Committees............................................ 604
Secretary Mineta:
What I Will Do To Help Solve the Airline Delay Problem
March 15 and April 25, 2001 Progress.......................473, 640
Separation Standards............................................. 581
Slot Allocation.................................................. 606
Slot Allocation and Competition.................................. 607
Slot Controlled Airports......................................... 604
Streamlining Process Statute of Limitation....................... 601
System Efficiency and Demand Management Option................... 604
Support Staff for Runway Projects................................ 554
Tracking Delay Progress.......................................... 590
Witnesses........................................................ 471
Airline Delays and Aviation System Capacity
August 2, 2001
Air Traffic:
Air Traffic Modernization Tools Booklet...................... 750
Air Traffic Operations.....................................806, 812
Air Traffic Volume........................................... 800
Aircraft Separation Standards.................................... 752
Airline:
Airline Pilot and Controller Alliance........................ 740
Airline Schedule Changes..................................... 715
Airport:
Airport Capacity............................................. 798
Airport Construction Streamlining Process.................... 724
Airport Revenues for Remediation............................. 725
Atlanta Airports............................................. 658
LaGuardia Airport Lottery.................................... 680
Sub-Hub Airport Capacity Use................................. 680
Airspace Redesign................................................ 751
Anti-Trust Immunity.............................................. 724
Average Load Factors............................................. 682
Biography:
Charles M. Barclay, President, American Association Airport
Executives................................................. 737
John S. Carr, President, National Air Traffic Controllers
Association................................................ 787
Captain Dennis J. Dolan, First Vice President, Air Line
Pilots Association......................................... 749
Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary, Department of
Transportation............................................. 657
Kenneth M. Mead, Inspector General, Department of
Transportation............................................. 712
Edwin A. Merlis, Senior Vice President, Air Transport
Association................................................ 723
Capacity:
Airport Capacity............................................. 798
Capacity Expansion Projects.................................. 715
Sub-Hub Airport Capacity Use................................. 680
Chokepoints...................................................... 659
Closing Remarks.................................................. 822
Commitments and Progress.......................................682, 713
Controller:
Controller Attrition......................................... 805
Controller Workforce.......................................751, 804
Data Collection.................................................. 809
Data Collection Validation....................................... 810
Delays:
Airline Delay Problems....................................... 812
Airline Delay Progress Report................................ 812
Causes of Delays......................................789, 797, 811
Delay Data Availability to Customers......................... 714
Delay Data Interim Final Rule................................ 791
Delay Information for Customers.............................. 725
Delay Information Mandate.................................... 790
Delay Improvements........................................... 646
Delay Panel Consensus on Resolution.......................... 789
Delay Reporting Requirements................................. 809
Flight Delays and Cancellations.............................. 750
Key Delay Indicators......................................... 796
Pilot Program Key Delay Indictors............................ 792
Progress on Delays........................................... 681
Purpose of Delay Hearings.................................... 643
Transportation Delay Work Group.............................. 646
Weather Delays............................................... 800
FAA Progress on Commitments...................................... 658
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriations Bill............................. 644
Flight Time/Duty Time Rules...................................... 741
Free Flight Phase I.............................................. 659
Free Flight Steering Committee................................... 740
Labor Relations Contract......................................... 799
Labor/Management Impact.......................................... 647
Low Frequency Noise.............................................. 798
Management Advisory Council...................................... 752
Model Enhancement................................................ 801
National Airspace System Modernization Strategic Plan............ 741
Nav Canada....................................................... 750
Open Remarks and Introduction of Witnesses....................... 643
Opening Statement:
Air Line Pilots Association Opening Statement................ 740
Air Transport Association Opening Statement.................. 713
Airport Executive Opening Statement.......................... 724
Deputy Secretary Opening Statement........................... 645
FAA Opening Statement........................................ 658
Inspector General Opening Statement.......................... 681
National Air Traffic Controllers Opening Statement........... 740
Operational Evolution Plan (OEP)................................. 660
Pilot Controller, and Dispatcher Alliance........................ 741
Reimbursable Agreement for Environmental Activities.............. 724
Report Card on Commitments....................................... 644
Runway Construction Permits...................................... 802
Secretary Mineta: What I Will Do To Help Solve the Airline Delay
Problem Commitments Made March 15 and April 25, 2001 Progress.. 810
Scheduling Data.................................................. 681
Summer Operations Plan........................................... 647
Questions for the Record for the Federal Aviation Administration From
Chairman Rogers
2000 Performance Goals........................................... 964
2001 Executive Bonuses for Fiscal Year 2000 Performance Goals.... 965
Accident Statistics.............................................. 986
Part 121 Fatal Accident Rates for U.S. Air Carrier per
100,000 Flight Hours 1990-2000............................. 987
Accident Rate 100,000 Flight Hours........................... 989
Advisory:
Advisory Circular............................................ 908
Advisory Committees.......................................... 1020
Air Traffic Control Management and Oversight..................... 1053
Airport And Airway Trust Fund:
Airport and Airway Trust Fund Statistics..................... 827
Comparison of Actual and Projected Uncommitted Trust Fund
Balances................................................... 834
Trust Fund Revenues and Outlays Comparison................... 832
Trust Fund Revenues and Outlays for FY 2001.................. 829
Trust Fund Revenues and Outlays for FY 2002.................. 830
Airport Improvement Program...................................... 1068
Airspace Redesign................................................ 1061
AMASS Commissionings............................................. 894
Assessments by OST............................................... 854
Assessments/Reimbursables by Fiscal Year..................... 855
Average Full-Time Equivalent:
Average Full-Time Equivalent Costs........................... 913
Average Full-Time Equivalent Costs for Controllers........... 913
Aviation Weather Research........................................ 1070
Baseline:
Baseline Management Notices.................................. 1032
Baselines--Facilities and Equipment.......................... 1033
Budget Requests to OST and OMB................................... 858
Center for Management Development................................ 1024
Civil Aviation Security.......................................... 1064
Civil Aviation Security--Screener Rulemaking..................... 895
Civil Aviation Security Statistics............................... 896
Commercial Space Transportation.................................. 1006
Commissioned Facilities.......................................... 891
Contract Maintenance Support Contracts........................... 888
Contract Tower:
Contract Tower Cost-Sharing Program.......................... 1022
Contract Tower Program....................................... 1021
Controller:
Air Traffic Controller Workforce Center Positions and
Employment................................................. 872
Average Full-Time Equivalent Costs for Controllers........... 913
Comparison of ATCS Staffing Standards with Onboard Levels.... 880
Controller Attrition......................................... 881
Controller Hiring............................................ 1059
Controller Equipment/Information Display System Planned
System Interfaces.......................................... 1084
Controller in Charge......................................... 885
Controller Incentive Pay..................................... 866
Controller Staffing.......................................... 869
Controller Training.......................................... 1003
CWF Staffing vs. FCT Staffing................................ 877
End-of-Year Controller Workforce vs. Contractor Staffing at
FCT........................................................ 875
TRACONS-CWF Actual On-Board.................................. 873
Core Compensation................................................ 906
Cost Accounting System........................................... 825
Depot Spare Funding Requests..................................... 887
English Language Proficiency..................................... 1011
Executive:
Executive Bonus Awards....................................... 949
Executive Compensation System................................ 949
Executive Positions.......................................... 937
Executive Positions Unfilled................................. 970
Field Maintenance--``Other Object'' Costs........................ 890
Five Most Important Modernization Programs....................... 1027
Forecasts and Statistics of Industry Activity.................... 976
Workload Indicator........................................... 977
Total Combined General Aviation Instrument Operations........ 980
GSA Rent......................................................... 916
Health Benefits.................................................. 914
International Aviation Safety.................................... 825
Leasing.......................................................... 1029
Leave:
Annual Leave................................................. 867
Sick Leave................................................... 868
Memorandum of Understanding:
Memorandum of Understanding between the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association and the Federal Aviation
Administration............................................. 1055
MOUs Granting Credit Hours................................... 1054
Settlement Agreement between the National Air Traffic
Controllers Associations and the FAA....................... 1058
National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA)
Representation................................................. 1003
National Parks Overflight Plans.................................. 1051
New Programs--Facilities and Equipment........................... 1029
Obligation Plan Versus Actual--Fiscal Year 2000.................. 932
Operations Fiscal Year 2000 Quarterly Direct Obligations..... 933
Obligations and Unobligated Balance--Facility and Equipment...... 1046
Office:
Office of Financial Services................................. 896
Office of Policy, Planning and International Aviation........ 1007
Office of System Safety...................................... 1017
Office of the Administrator and Deputy Administrator......... 1015
Regional Headquarters Offices Corporation Support Financial
and Staffing Resources FY 2000-2002........................ 1026
Regional Offices............................................. 1025
Onboard Staffing by Office....................................... 852
Operational Error Statistics..................................... 993
Operations....................................................... 1048
Other Services................................................... 859
Other Services Operations Appropriation...................... 859
Outlays--Facility and Equipment.................................. 1044
Overseas Personnel............................................... 835
Policy Studies................................................... 1013
Positions:
Executive Positions.......................................... 937
Executive Positions Unfilled................................. 970
FAA Distribution of Full-Time Equivalents (FTE) Operations
Appropriations............................................. 935
Federal Aviation Administration Employment and FTEs 2000..... 973
Federal Aviation Administration Employment and FTEs 2001..... 974
Federal Aviation Administration Employment and FTEs 2002..... 975
Human Resource Management Positions.......................... 901
Positions and Employment Summary............................. 972
Positions by Office.......................................... 934
Public Affairs Positions..................................... 1024
Product Development Teams Funding Distribution................... 1072
RTCA, Incorporated............................................... 1023
Runway Incursion:
Pilot Deviation Runway Incursion By Operation Type 1997-2000. 990
Runway Incursion Data Fiscal Year 1997-2000.................. 991
Runway Incursion Statistics.................................. 990
Safety System Top Priorities..................................... 1028
Special Pays..................................................... 861
Federal Aviation Administration Operations Appropriation
Special Pay................................................ 861
Federal Aviation Administration Operations Appropriation
Special Pay by Line of Business............................ 865
Staffing:
Comparison of March 2001 Staffing to Budget Estimates........ 853
Controller Staffing.......................................... 869
Maintenance Staffing......................................... 887
Sunday Premium Pay............................................... 869
Transit Subsidy Benefit Program.................................. 916
Estimated Costs for FAA Participation in the Transit Benefit
Program-Fiscal Year 1996-2001.............................. 916
Current Number of Enrollees in FAA's Transit Benefit Program. 917
Transportation Administrative Service Center..................... 854
Travel:
Federal Aviation Administration Operations Appropriation
Travel and Transportation.................................. 917
Non-Routine Overseas Travel.................................. 921
Travel and Transportation Expenditures Operations
Appropriation.............................................. 918
Travel-Operations Funded..................................... 917
Turbulence:
Turbulence Accidents and Incidents........................... 997
Turbulence Alert System...................................... 1083
Union Workforces................................................. 1004
User Fees........................................................ 906
Wake Turbulence and Wake Vortex Detection Systems................ 1078
Weather:
Aviation Weather Research.................................... 1070
Weather Forecasting.......................................... 1076
Weather Research Activities.................................. 1073
Weather Research to ATC Command Center....................... 1080
Weather Research Results Utilization......................... 1081
Weather Information VIA the Internet......................... 1082
Weather Systems and NAS Operational Evolution Plan........... 1082
Within-Grade Increases (WIGs).................................... 1050
Workers' Compensation............................................ 848
CBY 2000 Distribution of Workers' Compensation Recipients.... 849
Workload Measures and Industry Trends............................ 981
Growth Rate %: Aviation Activity vs. FAA Operations Budget... 982
Comparison of FAA Air Traffic Funding and Workload Measures.. 984