Overscheduling causing grief in the American skies

In the US, one in five flights is now
being delayed every hour, owing to over scheduling. Flight cancellations have
also soared to an approximate figure of one in thirty.

Most of the major airlines admit to over
scheduling flights but justify this action on grounds of competition and that
there is no rule against this practice.

Last year was probably the worst year in
the history of the American aviation industry in terms of flight delays.
Surveys have shown that American airline travellers waited for an approximate
total of 285 million hours, that is, nearly 32,477 years! This year with the
holiday season just around the corner, air travellers might have to wait for
longer hours to get to their respective destinations.

So, how did the American airports get to be
so congested? And above all, what is the solution to this ever-increasing
problem?

For many years now, researchers have been
observing this problem, which seems to brewing for more than a decade.

Going to the airport in the United States
is generally a spirit-crushing experience, and our researchers predicted that
it will only get worse. As a result of which, our passengers have become
immensely frustrated with not having a predictable and comfortable flight.

The most serious problem that most of the
major airports encounter is overscheduling of flights. Overscheduling causes flight
delays and cancellations, this in turn ruins the travelling experience for the
passenger nationwide.

Whats more, utilizing technology to help
relieve this over scheduling problem will do very little or practically nothing
to erase this problem. Many of the actions that are required to be taken in
order to relieve the industry of overscheduling and flight delays are not
limited to the technical community itself. The government needs to take part in
this by first understanding what the causes for these problems are. And, the
public needs to do their duty by pushing them into take action so that we can
have a safe, comfortable and predictable air transportation system.

While flight delays and cancellations are
inconvenient and annoying, there are other serious safety hazards that are
caused due to over scheduling of flights. Research has shown that there is a
strong correlation between overcrowded flight schedules and safety issues. When
schedules are found to be congested, there is usually a definite loss of
aircraft separation. The tighter the airline schedule is, the more unsafe the
transportation system is found to be.

When flights are overscheduled at a
particular airport, they are generally trying to land safely at a faster rate
than the airport runway can accept. This however, puts an immense amount of
pressure on traffic controllers, as they attempt to keep flight delays at low
levels while at the same time keeping the planes away from each other. In the
past, airplanes circling over the airport terminal waiting for a safe place to
land have been the cause of plenty of accidents, thus, air traffic controllers
have now started making attempts to get these planes down on the runway before
this is any sort of air-borne accident.

Why
is Overscheduling so common in American Airports?

Most European passengers tend to experience
a much more enjoyable and predictable flight experience as compared to their
American counterparts. This is because the European regulation agencies make
use of slot controls and forbid airlines to schedule more flights than the
concerned airport can actually handle.

The congestion in the US is mainly
caused due to the deregulation of the airline industry in the 70s. When these
laws were passed, they took away all government control over the scheduling of
flights at any given time at any given airport.

How
to solve this problem?

So, the passengers of today are being
treated terribly and have grown so accustomed to it that they have now started
to accept this treatment. If the passengers can find a way to make their voices
heard, changes will surely come. The government has to find a way to fix the
problem.

Airlines are not ready to reduce their
schedules because they feel that their competition will get ahead of them in
that case. Owing to the antitrust laws, airlines are not allowed to get
together and jointly reduce each of their schedules.

A number of solutions have been proposed to
alleviate this problem that includes:

Implementing the use of larger aircraft so as to reduce the
number of flights, thus relieving congestion in the air traffic between
major airports.There has to be shared use of airport capacity in some of the
congested metros.Greater use of charter flights and regional jets.Congestion pricing at metropolitan airports.

In the long run, the need to increase the
overall efficiency and capacity of the countrys major airports is of utmost
importance. New technology will hopefully improve the separation space between
the flights, but technology alone cannot unclog this congestion.

Hopefully, passengers will begin to
comprehend the seriousness of the situation and put pressure on the government
to take action.

Keeping all of this in mind, the charter
industry has now begun to flourish. As an ardent admirer of charter flights
(FMI FMGM), I have never had to go through flight delays, cancellations, and
over scheduling.

ArticleSource: ArticlesAlley.com