New York City’s (NYC) airports are experiencing capacity challenges in air traffic control (ATC), which has resulted in the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announcing last month that it would relocate a portion of the management of NYC’s airspace to Philadelphia.
According to simpleflying.com, Newark Airport’s ATC contractor workload will be transferred to Philadelphia Airport by June this year to try to improve capacity at the airport.
A shortage of qualified ATCs has been cited as the reason for major air traffic congestion in the region. To ease ATC capacity, airlines were offered a lower minimum flight requirement (relating to how many of their slots are flown daily, weekly and monthly) to reduce the number of flights coming in and out of NYC. However, this lower flight requirement is set to expire in October this year.
Despite the measure to improve airspace operations at NYC airports, US airlines are requesting the continuation of reduced minimum flight quotas.
Airlines for America (A4A), the trade group representing Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest, is requesting an extension of the minimum flight quota to protect their existing slots at NYC’s airports.
While there are concerns that the ongoing reduction of flights could stifle the flight availability at NYC’s airports, A4A’s request follows an FAA statistics report that predicts the ATC shortage may only be resolved by late 2025.
