IATA Leads Working Group To Cut Delays, Handle Growth At JFK Airport

The May 23 issue of Aviation Daily includes a story (subscribers only) by my colleague Adrian Schofield on how a new working group headed by IATA -- including airlines, airport and FAA representatives -- hopes to help cut delays and handle expected traffic growth at JFK Airport.

The working group, which meets quarterly, has already resulted in a daily teleconference to discuss airport operations, new runway procedures, and a plan to streamline peak time departures and arrivals, said Peter Cerda, IATA's director of safety, operations and infrastructure for the Americas region.

IATA's close involvement in the JFK initiatives is due to the fact that there are so many international carriers using the airport, Cerda told Aviation Daily. IATA has also been involved in operational improvements at Chicago and Miami, and the group wants to help launch similar efforts at San Francisco and Los Angeles. Cerda notes that although the Air Transport Association leads many airline initiatives in the U.S., some are better suited to IATA because of their international angle.

The JFK operational review and improvement team is intended to find short-term solutions to congestion at the airport, Cerda said. There are plenty of long-term efforts underway -- such as airspace redesign -- but airlines want results sooner.

The working group spurred a new runway configuration proposal. During the early afternoon arrival bank, two of the four JFK runways would be dedicated to arrivals, and one to departures. The evening departure banks would see this configuration reversed, with two runways earmarked for departures and one for arrivals.

FAA is currently evaluating this proposal, and MITRE and Delta are running simulations. If these studies show no problems, the new procedures could be implemented this summer, Cerda said. He believes there would be no safety implications using three runways simultaneously, but using four would require much more study.