The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has just extended the slot waiver program for New York area airports for a full additional year, through late 2025. Is this a smart move to reduce delays, or does it just reduce competition?
Continue reading: FAA Extends Airline Slot Waivers In New York Through Late 2025
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Even back when the FAA was "fully staffed," NY was still the king of IROPs any time a butterfly sneezed. That's not going to change. At this point, if the slots aren't being used, just cancel them.
The folks at American and Delta are genius. They are getting the government to block ULCCs from getting any more slots at New York area airports, (Frontier, Allegiant and Sun Country only have a few measly slots a LGA, JFK and Newark) keeping fares sky high. Gotta love it.
All 3 NYC airports and other parts of the NE were under lengthy ATC delays for most of yesterday even though there was little storms directly over NYC.
Even if more slots were available to use, airlines would have to be cancelling flights.
The market to/from NYC has not recovered and will likely continue to fail to grow or shrink since NY State leads the US in outbound immigration.
The notion that slot waivers are keeping competitors out of the market is not supported by facts. There was nothing in slot rules that allowed reallocation of existing slots to other carriers even if slots were being used 100%.
UA also benefits because EWR is not slot controlled any more but carriers at LGA and JFK (AA, B6 and DL) do not have to use all of their slots which means UA is at less of a competitive disadvantage given that DL has the slots to be 25% larger than UA since EWR is operating at max capacity.
I love that honestly. Keep the slots in place they show prestige. When airlines are fighting over spots you come out on top!
The market to/from NYC has absolutely recovered, the issue is the lack of ATC.
JFK 2023 numbers are within 2% of 2019 numbers (30.5m vs. 31.0m), while LGA and EWR 2023 pax numbers have surpassed 2019 numbers (24.5m vs 23.1m for EWR, 16.2m vs. 15.4m).
For comparison, ATL 2023 vs 2019 is 50.9m vs. 53.5m.
NYC is not going to ever shrink with any significance as a market. Traffic has recovered and is in fact up, not up as much as some places, but up from pre-pandemic levels.
The slots would normally be forfeited if not used 80% and the only reason they wouldn't be reallocated is because of the same slot waiver program. Otherwise if forfeited they'd go back and be reallocated per the IATA WSG which gives preference to 50% new entrants. Existing slots are grandfathered, but with usage waived, and FAA saying specifically they won't reallocate, that's the only thing keeping them vacant.
The FAA is moving part of Newark's airspace to Philadelphia and even with lump sum bonuses in excess of $100k and relo packages they can't get people to move from Long Island. We wouldn't put up with this in other industries, like lacking USDA personnel causing supply in grocery stores to start diminishing.
Demand recovery is based on revenue and not just number of flights and passenger boardings.
Airlines say that average fares have not recovered in NYC and there is enough data to show that, in aggregate, that is true.
The slot system forces airlines to fly unprofitable capacity or do things such as hourly flights from PHL to LGA or JFK; there is strong incentive not to lose slots and the FAA has a very short history of doing that.
They removed slot controls at EWR when UA failed to use its slots and that is undoubtedly what would happen at JFK and LGA if slots were not adequately used; AA, B6 and DL all know that
The primary point is that slot usage exemptions do not inhibit competition because every LGA and JFK airline has the ability to remove the same percentage of flights; no one is forced to not fly a portion of their slots.
And you are right that the FAA is in the midst of restructuring NYC airspace so this seems like a really pour time to throw more capacity into the mix.
The FAA needs to fix its issues but 3 years post-covid is not a long time in light of the need for ATC to get it 100% right, something that airlines did not do in their post-covid ramp up.
As stupid as this extension may be... T8 at JFK really is a delight outside of the main TATL departure bank.