US Caps JFK Flights to Ease Delays

Move designed to keep airports elsewhere on time
By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 19, 2007 4:59 PM CST
US Caps JFK Flights to Ease Delays
Airline passengers wait to be helped at the Air Canada counter at LaGuardia Airport Friday, June 8, 2007 in New York. A cascading computer failure in the nation's air-traffic control system caused severe flight delays and some cancellations in New York City and along the East Coast Friday. (AP Photo/Frank...   (Associated Press)

Transportation officials today capped the number of flights per hour at New York's JFK airport in a bid to keep flight delays from cascading around the country, the New York Times reports. Starting in March, JFK will be allowed up to 83 flights an hour, down from about 100 at peak times this summer. Newark's Liberty airport will get similar limits, but those numbers have yet to be determined.

"Absent intervention, next summer would have been even worse than the summer of '07," said transportation chief Mary Peters. Through October, about a quarter of all flights at JFK had been delayed, canceled, or diverted, the Washington Post notes. Though New York's airspace is especially congested, only LaGuardia currently caps flights.  (More New York City stories.)

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