It
has been billed as potentially one of the worst travel seasons in years, with high airfares and packed planes. But, so far this summer, there are at least a couple of bright spots for fliers: There are fewer airline delays and cancellations than last year.
Between
May 25 and June 15, 22.7% of all flights at the 10 biggest airlines have been late, better than the 25% late rate last year on the same days, according to FlightStats Inc., which tracks airline flight performance. The average delay was about the same as last year: 53 minutes.
This
season air-traffic controllers have a new foul-weather tool that also appears to be helping. So far, based on preliminary results, it has cut the number of delayed flights in half on stormy days, compared with last year.
This
year marks the busiest summer air-travel season since 2000. Airlines have trimmed domestic capacity because of high fuel costs, enabling them to push fares higher. Despite more-expensive tickets, more people are traveling this summer than last year. That, plus the reduced capacity, is resulting in fuller airplanes. In May, airlines filled 80.7% of their seats, according to the ATA, up from 78.8% in May 2005. That's the highest load factor for the month of May ever recorded by the industry.
The
somewhat rosier picture of delays and cancellations was marred this past weekend, as rain soaked the East Coast and slowed travel, revealing just how fickle the jammed-to-capacity air-travel system is. US Airways Flight 1205 from New York-La Guardia to Charlotte, N.C., and Continental Airlines Flight 1831 from Boston to Cleveland were both more than five hours late on Friday, according to FlightStats. Several other flights landed more than four hours overdue.
Also,
fliers have recently faced periodic long waits at security checkpoints at some airports. At Terminal 5 in Los Angeles, home to Delta Air Lines, a maximum wait of 58 minutes was recorded by the federal Transportation Security Administration early on a Thursday morning; a 58-minute wait also was recorded at La Guardia's Concourse B, which houses several discount airlines, on a Monday at 3 p.m.
Waits
of 45 minutes or longer were recorded in Seattle, New York's Kennedy Airport, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Fla., and Minneapolis during that four weeks, according to TSA data. In addition, waits of at least 30 minutes were sporadically experienced in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago-O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, Newark, N.J., Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Washington-Dulles.
Overall,
the picture isn't that bleak. Indeed, the TSA says lines at airport security checkpoints are moving at about the same pace as last summer, even though overall traffic is up. "For the most part, we feel pretty comfortable with the direction it's going," says Earl Morris, the TSA's general manager for field operations.
Long
waits at TSA checkpoints have been a worry for travelers because staffing at some big airports was below authorized levels going into the summer rush. To avert painfully long waits, TSA shipped extra screeners from its national force to Los Angeles International, Washington-Dulles and other airports with staffing shortages.
Long
lines in Los Angeles became an embarrassment when the TSA told local officials that lines stretching out of terminals onto the sidewalk were gone "forever" at LAX. Six days later, a line stretched out to the sidewalk and became front-page news for the Los Angeles Times.
The
TSA says those long lines often result from problems like broken-down X-ray machines or disruptions to airline schedules that may send a pack of passengers from one terminal to another. Sometimes, there are just plain rush-hour bottlenecks. Fort Lauderdale on Fridays frequently has long lines, for example. On the whole, the average wait at security checkpoints is around 15 to 20 minutes at peak travel times, and less at off-peak times.
One
change the TSA has made at some airports to speed up security lines is to remove some metal detectors, leaving one metal detector for every two X-ray machines. Though it would seem that such a move would slow down the process, the TSA has found that the reduction actually speeds up lines, in part because security screeners who had staffed the metal detectors are moved in front of X-ray machines to help travelers empty pockets and get bags screened more quickly. The change was made in Los Angeles at the start of the summer season and has sped up screening, TSA and local airport officials say. The TSA is currently reconfiguring lanes at Washington's Dulles Airport to the new setup.
The
TSA has also pushed to speed up local hiring at big airports. The agency fell behind on hiring earlier this year when it switched from a national recruiter to making local TSA officials do their own hiring. But hiring now exceeds attrition, the TSA says, and the agency is fully staffed at all but 28 airports. Extra screeners from a mobile national force have been sent to understaffed airports, and some have been authorized to hire contractors to help people load luggage onto bomb-screening machines, freeing up federal screeners for other duties.
With
flights fully booked, airlines have fought to avoid cancellations and keep people moving, knowing there are few empty seats available to accommodate stranded travelers. In the first three weeks of the summer period, only 0.7% of flights were canceled, compared with 1% a year earlier, according to FlightStats.
The
Federal Aviation Administration says flight delays were up slightly in April and May, but have been down so far in June, before the weekend East Coast rain. The total number of flights in the sky is down slightly because of airline cutbacks, but some key cities like New York and Las Vegas have more traffic than last year, said Mike Cirillo, vice president of system operations at the FAA's Air Traffic Organization.
The
FAA has been trying out a new software tool that targets specific flights for delay when bad weather temporarily closes some air routes, rather than simply delaying all flights bound for specific airports. In the past, a line of thunderstorms in New York and Pennsylvania might have prompted delays for all flights headed to Boston to thin out traffic, Mr. Cirillo said. Now, the Airspace Flow Program lets controllers targets only flights scheduled to fly through the stormy area, leaving flights between Florida and Boston unaffected, for example.
The
program has been used three days so far this month, on June 9 and twice last week, and it cut the number delays by about half in its first two uses compared with typical storm days last year. Data are still preliminary, Mr. Cirillo noted, and the new program, like the rest of the U.S. air-travel system, will face bigger tests later this summer.
Write
to Scott McCartney at middleseat@wsj.com
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