With
the congestion created by the Airline Deregulation Act, the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) has been forced to deal with crowding at airports by
imposing greater controls over take-offs and landings. While not as severe as
the problems at Washington-National, New York-LaGuardia, Atlanta-Hartsfield or
others, delays and capacity problems are becoming more acute at Metro as well.
The FAA has reacted in the these cities by imposing controls on the number of
movements during peak hours.
In
1987, the FAA urged the major carriers at the busiest airports to meet and
resolve scheduling problems to avoid lengthy delays in these airports. While the
airlines were able to resolve many of these scheduling problems on a "voluntary"
basis, it was feared that if they had been unsuccessful, the FAA would have had to impose
mandatory restrictions on movements to reduce delays.
In a
study published in May, 1988 by the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport
Capacity Enhancement Task Force ofthe Federal Aviation Administration, capacity problems and delays were
analyzed in great detail. One of the recommendations of the task force included
a suggestion for uniform scheduling of arrivals and departures during peak
hours. This suggestion is not a mandate but a recognition that scheduling
problems are already contributing to delays at Metro.
[35]
The
effect of such involuntary controls would be to undermine the Airline
Deregulation Act and the benefits the public has received. The airline industry
has shown the benefits of deregulation through more competitive and lower
prices, resulting in more people being able to afford to fly. The
negative results have been the capacity problems at the airports.
In
the future, insufficient infrastructure capacity and FAA controls could have the
effect of reducing the supply of available seats. With lower supply (potentially
insufficient to meet demand at current prices), the airlines will be able to
charge higher prices for seats which are available (see Figure 3).
Therefore, insufficient capacity has the potential of making air travel more
expensive and less available to people who have been able to travel by air as a
result of airline deregulation.
While
Metro doesn't currently have capacity problems of the magnitude of
Washington-National or New York-LaGuardia, some problems already exist. As
described earlier, there are insufficient gates to meet the demand of airlines
operating at Metro.
The
Airport Capacity Enhancement Plan in large part concluded that additional
runways are needed as the majority of airfield delays are runway related.
[36] The study acknowledges that over 50% of the
total delay is caused due to weather conditions forcing the use of the East/West
runway instead of tile airport's more efficient three parallel runways. The
study recommends the construction of a new east/west runway to parallel the
existing one. The study suggested that a new runway would save $85.3 million per
year in the cost of delays at the current level of airport usage.
[37] These
delay costs are paid by the airlines and their passengers.
The
Airport Capacity Enhancement Plan further projects the effect of some of the
deficiencies at Metro Airport assuming growth in the demand for air travel.
Population growth, economic expansion and increases in disposable income can
further lead to increased demand for airport capacity.
Figure 3 illustrates the effect of capacity constraints on supply and demand
where demand did not vary over time. If the growth in quantity of demand as a
result of factors other than price and capacity are measured, the effect of
capacity controls might be drive up costs even further (see Figure 4).
