Bush Plan to Unclog Airways Includes Auction of La Guardia Landing Spots

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Bush Plan to Unclog Airways Includes Auction of La Guardia Landing Spots
By MARTIN VAUGHAN
April 17, 2008; Page D5

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is raising the stakes in its effort to introduce more market-based approaches to relieve crowding in the nation's airways. Under a proposal announced Wednesday, airlines would be required to put up a portion of their closely guarded landing slots at New York's La Guardia Airport for auction each year for the next five years.

In addition, the Transportation Department also made final a rule to double to as much as $800 the maximum amounts airlines are required to pay passengers who are bumped from flights against their will. Airlines are required to refund bumped passengers the cost of the ticket plus the equivalent of two one-way fares. Wednesday's action increases the cap on those payouts to $400 from $200 if passengers reach their destination within two hours for domestic flights, and to $800 if they don't reach their destination within that time.

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But major U.S. airlines are expected to fight the proposal. US Airways Group Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. might lose the most under the department's plan. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates La Guardia and other New York-area airports, panned the proposal, saying it "would reduce choices for customers, make flying more expensive, and cut service to small cities that otherwise have no flights to New York City." The proposed rule must undergo a 60-day comment period and interagency review before becoming final.

The Transportation Department says the proposal will encourage lower fares by helping newer, low-cost airlines gain access to coveted La Guardia slots, and will cut congestion by spurring airlines to fly more passengers on fewer aircraft. The auction proposal for La Guardia is not the only area where administration officials have sought to use market-based tools to help alleviate clogged airways. Earlier this year, the Transportation Department dropped plans to implement a similar auction at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. The department is now weighing a separate proposal to allow airports to charge additional landing fees on flights that operate at peak times.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120838530579120937.html (subscription)

[Doctor Cynic]

1. Heh, it would be faster to walk than to fly under this plan. n/t

Actually, this could squeeze out startup Low Cost airlines, since they can't compete against big airlines.

Yet again this will have the opposite effect of what they say will happen.

[izquierdista]

2. Bush's market based approaches

Those BMBAs are spectacular failures in a world where failure is all too common. A BMBA could mess up the supply of salt water in the Pacific Ocean; or the supply of sand in the Sahara.

To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer, but to mess things up so that they can never be put right again requires a Bush Market Based Approach.

[marmar]

3. More market-based bullshit.....

.... Why not rename it Grover Norquist Airport? :argh:

[GuvWurld]

4. Small airlines have already begun failing

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/04/04/airlines.bankruptcy/index.html

updated 10:08 p.m. EDT, Fri April 4, 2008

Skybus becomes third airline this week to close

(CNN) -- Skybus Airlines announced Friday it is shutting down its passenger flights -- becoming the third airline this week to cease operations.

Skybus Airlines joins ATA and Aloha Airlines, which announced shutdowns earlier this week.

The low-cost carrier couldn't overcome "the combination of rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment," the company said Friday. "These two issues proved to be insurmountable for a new carrier."

[gear_head]

5. how else can it be done?

otherwise, the old airlines hog everything