Finally

It only took them 8 years.

Feds to trim LaGuardia flights to cut congestion

”U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced the government will lower the cap on flights at LaGuardia from 75 to 71 per hour. But the cap is strictly voluntary, and requires participation by the three top airlines at the airport -- Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and US Airways.“

Voluntary ? What’s with the “voluntary” part ? Oh well. It’s still a step in the right direction.

Just to refresh your memory, here are the numbers for LGA. Now that we’ve got this part of the equation figured out, compare LGA with JFK’s numbers. Do you see what I see ?

JFK -- IMC with two parallel runways (22L/22R) = 36 Arrivals per hour

LGA -- IMC with two crossing runways (31/04) = 36 Arrivals per hour

No, it doesn’t compute. At least for an ex-Center controller. I’ll ask a few Tower controllers and see if I’m missing something. At the risk of stating the obvious...if you don’t really know something, don’t be afraid to ask the people that do.

Don Brown
December 22, 2008