Congestion Mitigation at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City

Abstract

With the significant growth in air traffic experienced during the past few decades, airport capacity has become an increasingly costly constraint. Flight delays reached record-high levels in 2007, with a nationwide impact estimated at more than $30 billion for that calendar year. At airports where capacity expansion and improvements in operational efficiency are not feasible, congestion could be mitigated in the short and medium terms through implementation of schedule coordination mechanisms. Such measures essentially reduce peak hour scheduling levels; however, these measures have been criticized for the constraints that they might create on airline scheduling. This paper presents a schedule coordination model that reduces flight delays while minimizing interference with airline scheduling and then applies the model to one of the most congested U.S. airports, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The analysis suggests that it may be possible to reduce peak arrival and departure delays by more than 30% and 50%, respectively, without eliminating flights, aircraft connections, or passenger connections and without modifying the scheduled departure and arrival times of any flight by more than 30 min. These results underscore the potential of schedule coordination as a means of achieving substantial congestion cost savings at the busiest U.S. airports. Opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation of such a mechanism are discussed.