Impending Air Traffic Gridlock
Steve Borsch is on the case of the air transport system. (Guess what the security corollary is.)
- Move to lighter aircraft
At La Guardia, half of all flights now involve smaller planes: regional jets and turboprops. It’s the same at Chicago’s O’Hare, which is spending billions to expand runways. At New Jersey’s Newark Liberty and New York’s John F. Kennedy, 40 percent of traffic involves smaller planes, according to Eclat Consulting in Reston, Va. Aircraft numbers tell the tale: U.S. airlines grounded a net 385 large planes from 2000 through 2006 – but they added 1,029 regional jets – says data firm Airline Monitor.
- From 633 million passengers this year to 1 billion by 2010
“Too many planes trying to use the airport infrastructure’ an enormous projected increase in the number of people flying domestically in just over two years’ thousands of smaller airports not operating at capacity.”
- Capacity upgrades are unfeasible
“Capacity investments in existing airfields or investment that would economically stimulate other cities (like mine)? I predict that it will be easier to push aircraft to the Flying Cloud airports of the world vs. the billions needed to expand major commercial airports.
-Shlok
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