FLUG REVUE August 2005: La Guardia copes with big traffic

August 2005

LA GUARDIA: NEW YORK´S CITY AIRPORT

By Sebastian Steinke

One Thursday morning in New York, LaGuardia airport. Twinjets are lined up in long queues on the taxiways to either side of the runway waiting for permission to take off; they advance towards the end of the runway like bread rolls on the conveyor belts of a large bakery. But by the time the FLUG REVUE journalist has reached the office of LaGuardia's General Manager, Warren D. Kroeppel, the impressive morning wave of domestic flights is already airborne.

Kroeppel's office is on the artificial, reclaimed airport peninsula, right next to the oldest part of this long established New York airport, the Marine Air Terminal, which is a listed building, and looks directly out onto the runway. There the golden inscription “Trump” gleams on a Boeing 727 that is parking in the sun. “That is Donald's private jet,” Kroeppel explains proudly. “It is the only private aircraft to have a permanent home in LaGuardia (LGA).”

Apart from the New York real estate magnate and his impeccable connections, all the other private jets have to use the less congested Teterboro airport and, at the most, make fleeting visits to LGA. Six precious slots per hour are kept free for General Aviation flights, but these are always booked up by the private jets of the biggest US corporations. The captains of industry want to get to nearby Manhattan as conveniently as possible and are not deterred by the prohibitive landing charges levied on private aircraft.

With 406,000 flight movements per year – more even than JFK handles – and 24.4 million passengers, apart from a brief respite around midday, the two cross-over runways are always congested. When the weather is fine, as it is today, this is not a problem, but when mist or a storm strikes, maintaining punctual operations becomes an organisational challenge for tower and air traffic control alike.

Unlike New York's big JFK airport, where the traffic peaks in the afternoon with overseas flights, LaGuardia is fully utilised more or less non-stop from 6am to 11pm at night. 1,200 flights per weekday and 900 a day at weekends make for congested conditions on the apron, where space is in short supply. After a quick change of passengers, most aircraft like to head straight back on the return haul. With zip-like parking on the aprons, which are built up on three sides, longer jets like the 757-300 in particular are up against their limits. The 717 and A319 on the other hand are ideally suited for this airport.

Due to the overwhelming crush, LaGuardia even found its way into the (negative) national headlines in 2000, when it transpired that a quarter of all US delays originated from the New York airport, causing knock-on delays to connecting flights throughout the national airline network. At that time liberalisation and deregulation of American air transport had led to a ridiculous number of flights being offered.

For example, as Kroeppel recalls unsympathetically, there were no fewer than 16 flights a day bound for Indianapolis and 14 for Cleveland. “At that time the authorities would happily dish out a route licence to anyone who promised to transport two million passengers a year to a new destination, even though all the slots were already taken. The politicians wanted to encourage new markets by this means.”

At that time FAA air traffic control calculated that LaGuardia could only handle 1,250 flight movements, but they succeeded in processing 1,450 thanks to a lot of improvisation talent. But this only meant applications for an additional 300 to 400 slots. Things could not go on like this.

Finally, on 31 January 2001, a new procedure known as a “slottery” was introduced (half-way between “lottery” and “slot”) with the aim of distributing fairly the 1,250 daily flight movements that were actually available and no longer allowing half-empty aircraft to fly in parallel. “The day before there was a three-hour delay,” Kroeppel recalls, “but now everything ran to schedule.” The “slottery” is to be continued to at least 2007.

If the available capacity falls due to poor weather, the competing airlines reach informal agreement amongst themselves at short notice as to whose flight should take priority. According to Warren Kroeppel, this approach works without serious problems. “It is rather like a family sharing a lifeboat. If they don't cooperate, they will all go under. We continually utilise our infrastructure to the full.” To reduce the crush, under a “perimeter rule”, LGA has forbidden all long-haul flights to destinations over 2,400 kilometres away since 1984, except on Saturdays, when demand is somewhat weaker.

The airport reaches its maximum capacity when takeoff runway 13 and landing runway 22 are in operation, while its capacity is at its lowest level when takeoff runway 4 and landing runway 31 are in use. Owing to occasional violent winds, delays can sometimes occur even in bright, sunny weather.

Today the average aircraft using the airport has only 78 to 80 passenger seats, as 40 percent of all flights are flown with regional jets and turboprops. Many airlines have cut back on their former capacity, but retained the flights with high frequencies. The airport hopes to be handling 30 million passengers a year by 2021, that is, 20 to 25 percent more than today. As Kroeppel points out, “We want fewer flight movements but larger aircraft.”

LaGuardia can actually cope with larger aircraft. The Boeing 727 was not the only aircraft originally designed for the only 2.1 kilometre long runway on East River. In some cases they rise up into the water of Flushing Bay on steel supports that tend to deflect their magnetic compasses in the cockpit. The DC-10-10, the L-1011 and the 767 can also manoeuvre into the tight ramp positions thanks to their relatively short wingspans, optimised for LaGuardia. In effect the airport has become a global benchmark in aircraft construction.

Boeing even went to the expense of privately funding a version of the 777 giant twin jet which had upwardly folding wingtips, as on aircraft carriers. But, no airline ordered this variant, so the manufacturer now uses the wingtip space which it had originally deliberately kept clear of tanks, to accommodate additional fuel, allowing greater range. Version 787-3 of the future 787 will also fit into LaGuardia, having a specially reduced wingspan of only 51.6 metres.

At present the biggest aircraft type to feature on the East River flight schedule is the 61.4 metre long Boeing 767-400 operated by Delta, which has a wingspan of 51.9 metres. To accommodate the 767-400, the metal supports on the landing runways had to be strengthened. The overrun areas are currently being extended, as in JFK, to include emergency braking zones of high-resistance foam. In an emergency, an aircraft will sink into this, braking sharply, before it can roll on into the bay behind the runway. Apart from the occasional special flight flown by military C-17s, four-engined jet aircraft are not allowed in LGA.

At one time aircraft even took off directly on the water, as LaGuardia started out as a combined land aerodrome and seadrome. When the Marine Air Terminal commenced flying operations on 15 October 1939, the city of New York, whose mayor was called Fiorello Henry LaGuardia, finally acquired an airfield of its own, eliminating the need to go out of one's way to Newark in nearby New Jersey.

At that time passengers were able to leave the round Art Deco terminal building “A”, which to this day is still decorated with flying fish on tiles and huge murals, on two sides: either leftwards to the seaplane jetty on East River, from where Pan American's Boeing 314 seaplanes, for example, would take off towards Lisbon, or rightwards to the land runway, which was used for the transcontinental US routes. General Manager Kroeppel hopes to use the water jetty, which is still in existence, as soon as possible for an express ferry, which would carry passengers to Manhattan in only 20 minutes, avoiding all the traffic jams. Scheduled flights still take off on the land side today, specifically, shuttles operated by Delta to Washington DC and Boston.

LaGuardia's modernised main terminal “B”, the largely renovated Central Terminal Building (CTB) with its four piers or “concourses” and 40 gates, is hemmed in by five historic, brick aircraft hangars on the other side of the runway. Sixty percent of flights take off here, including those operated by the airline with the biggest presence here, American (in concourse D), plus United, Continental, Frontier, Midwest, Spirit and also JetBlue, which flies to LaGuardia as well as to its nearby JFK base. Airlines like Air Canada operate international flights from LaGuardia as well. To the east of the CTB is Terminal C, used by US Airways and US Airways Express. Still further to the east is Delta's Terminal D, where Northwest and Song flights are also handled.

LaGuardia is the opposite of a transfer airport. Only four percent of its passengers fly on from here. The rest come from or make directly for New York City. Although one can also get to LaGuardia by the M60 transit bus, the typical New Yorker arrives by taxi. The airport is particularly easy to get to from the office towers on Manhattan's Park Avenue by direct highways with bridges or tunnels, for 20 dollars or so.

Over the last few decades the noise problem has been significantly alleviated by quieter engines . Whereas 30 years ago one million New Yorkers were assailed by the sound of aircraft flying overhead, today this is a problem experienced by only 8,000 people in the immediate vicinity of the airport. The mayor of Queens district, within whose jurisdiction the airport lies, is a direct neighbour. At the other end of the runway is the famous New York prison island, Rikers Island.

Under US federal law, LaGuardia is open 24 hours a day, but for noise control reasons the airport is trying to persuade the airlines to desist from night flights between midnight and 6am, if need be by lobbying members of Congress. The airport has also succeeded in replacing a particularly noisy early morning MD-80 flight by a quieter 757.

Over the last ten years, some 60 to 90 million dollars have been spent every year on renovating the 65-year-old ground infrastructure, including the electrical supply lines, the water supply and the apron surface coating. This summer it is the turn of the concrete and asphalt surfaces on the apron and runway 13/31.

As soon as the city of New York releases the budget, airport boss Kroeppel wants to undertake further basic modernisation work. “We want to increase the distance between the piers and move our concourses towards the east to make room for this. The old tower will also be replaced by a new one.” Finally, Kroeppel wants to refine the approach to runway 22 with a Cat II instrument landing system and to install new touchdown zone markings on runway 13. In the densely used sky above New York more space is to be gained by a new airspace structure without through traffic.

Kroeppel sums up his strategy in a nutshell. “Keep the flight numbers, use bigger aircraft, more efficient operation – and all of that cleaner and quieter.” A German by origin, Kroeppel, who understands German fluently, can only shake his head over the Berlin closure plans for Tempelhof: “Our success is down to convenience. LaGuardia is staying.”

From FLUG REVUE 8/2005

Last updated 15 July 2005

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