Slots, Caps and Auctions

The FAA is at it again. Actually, it’s the Bush Administration. But in that enough career bureaucrats within the FAA have surrendered to the Bush ideology, it’s hard to tell the difference.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Flight caps to vanish at O'Hare, but headaches may stick around

” "We don't see a need for the caps at this point," Bobby Sturgell, the top official at the Federal Aviation Administration, said at O'Hare. “

Of course he doesn’t see the need for caps. That’s because his boss tells him he doesn’t see the need. It’s worth remembering that Mr. Sturgell was a naval aviator. Navy pilots know about putting a lot of airplanes in a very confined area -- an aircraft carrier. They also know that airplanes can only land so fast because two can’t land at the same time. Their “runway” has capacity limits just like your runway does. Mr. Sturgell knows this. He just doesn’t “see” this.

Like so much in the Bush Administration, lifting the caps at Chicago O’Hare is exactly the wrong move and exactly the wrong time. If the demand isn’t there to exceed the caps then why remove them ? In a few months (or years), when the demand returns, somebody will have to clean up this mess and restore the caps. It will be just as politically unpopular -- and necessary -- as it always has been. Those of you who read this blog already know this. It’s just one more example of politics trumping policy -- and another example of why Mr. Sturgell should never be confirmed as FAA Administrator.

On to a different verse of the same song from The New York Times:

Debate Over Auctioning of Airport Landing Slots

”Mr. DeCota even questioned whether the Bush administration has the authority to hold the auctions without first getting Congressional approval. “Nowhere in the Federal Aviation Act is there a declaration that slots are property and nowhere is there the authorization to auction or lease slots for monetary compensation there from,” he said. “

The public outcry over delays in New York was so bad that the Bush Administration could no longer deny reality. They bowed to pressure and enforced the landing slot restrictions that have been in place since 1969. But just because they were forced to obey one law doesn’t mean the won’t create another law out of thin air. Mr. DeCota might question whether the Bush Administration has the authority to auction off the landing slots at his airport but surely, by now, no one is surprised by the Bush Administration’s dysfunctional relationship with the law.

”He (D. J. Gribbin, the general counsel to the United States Department of Transportation) later continued, “Granting slots without market-based mechanisms creates a system where incumbent airlines fight to maintain large shares of the airport traffic and to limit the ability of low-cost carriers to compete.” “

During my career in the FAA, I ran into many situations that this statement epitomizes and I still don’t know how to deal with them. How do you argue with stupid ?

The FAA had to implement slots restrictions because the demand on the airport was too great. But we want to encourage more low-cost carriers to use the airport ? And we are going to do this by forcing them to spend more money -- to pay for a landing slot whose cost has been inflated by an auction ? Turning them into not-so-low-cost carriers ? They are doing away with slot restrictions in Chicago but they expect to auction them off in New York ?

It doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to include the phrase “market-based”. That is the magic incantation that makes everything okay.

Here’s an internet trick for you. Search Google News for +Bush +”Market Based”.

Getting the Flick ?

Don Brown
June 20, 2008