FAA And Airlines Study Peak Time Surcharge Proposals

Nov 13, 2000

Airlines and U.S. government officials are studying a plan that could increase ticket prices during peak travel times each day, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The "congestion pricing" proposal from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has emerged as a short-term solution to the huge delays that have plagued LaGuardia Airport in New York this fall.

If the FAA decides to allow the plan, it could spread to other airports around the country.

Congestion pricing, or peak pricing, allows airports to charge significantly higher landing fees during peak times, which for Chicago O'Hare are between 7.00 a.m. to 9.00 a.m. CST and 4.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. CST.

The higher landing fee would be passed along to passengers in the form of higher-priced tickets for travel during peak times.

The idea is that passengers who don't have to travel at specific times will make their travel plans for off-hours.

How much tickets might increase isn't known, but economists say it would have to be substantial to affect consumers' behavior.

Interest in congestion pricing, talked about for more than 30 years, came as the FAA said it planned to reduce the number of new operations at LaGuardia and conduct a slot lottery that would limit overall operations - takeoffs and landings - at the airport to 75 an hour between 7.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. EST.

The FAA has asked the airlines and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates LaGuardia, to look at the idea of higher landing fees as a tool to encourage shifting some operations to other times of the day.

"We are studying it and the implications," the Tribune cited Andy Plews, a spokesman for United Airlines as saying. Plews said the carrier's executives met over the weekend to review the pricing proposal and the slot lottery plan at LaGuardia.

http://news.airwise.com/stories/2000/11/974119089.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), November 13, 2000