Delays at McCarran will only get worse

Molly Ball

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

Flight delays at McCarran International Airport -- already among the nation's worst -- are only going to increase as the "highway in the sky" becomes too jammed to accommodate increasing traffic, Aviation Director Randy Walker said today.

The single air route that leads from Southern California to the urban Northeast -- passing over Las Vegas -- is routinely filled to capacity, making it difficult for planes leaving Las Vegas to get permission to take off, he said.

"You can't get on the feeder road to the freeway if the freeway's full," Walker said.

That means that no matter how many airports are built here, the number of planes taking off cannot increase past a certain point.

McCarran was second among the nation's major airports for percentage of departures that were delayed in October, according to a recently released report by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

While October was especially bad because of weather, a major convention, and two visits from President Bush, the ranking reflects a larger trend that is only going to get worse, Walker said.

"October was certainly worse than the first nine months of the year, but the whole 10 months weren't good," he said.

The report found that about 20 percent of all flights out of McCarran this year were delayed by at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, even as air capacity hits its limit, flights continue to increase. In the first 10 months of 2004, 14 percent more passengers passed through McCarran than in that period of 2003.

The problem is twofold: a severe limitation on airspace available for commercial flights, and lack of a system for prioritizing takeoffs.

Because of the huge amount of Western airspace controlled by the military, only a narrow corridor to the East Coast is available.

"The problem is that all the aircraft from Southern California going east flies right over Las Vegas," Walker said. "The reason they do that is that's the only hole through all the military airspace."

Planes leaving Las Vegas must get permission from the air-traffic control center in Palmdale, Calif., before they can take off. If there's no room, they sit on the runway until a spot opens up, Walker said.

Walker noted that the issue does not affect air safety, pointing out that when airplane traffic is heavy, aircraft are not "bumper to bumper" -- they fly at a safe distance apart, usually about five miles.

Compounding the frustration for Las Vegas, he said, there is no system in place to ensure that spots on the air highway are meted out fairly.

"My question (to aviation authorities) was, well then, what's the priority sequence?" Walker said. "I was told that it's basically first come, first serve."

Walker noted that airspace issues were becoming a major concern in 2000, but 9 /11 quickly and tragically solved the problem. Now that airlines are returning to pre-9/11 volumes, the issue is resurfacing, he said.

"I sit at my desk and look out the window at 15 airplanes stacked up" on the runway awaiting takeoff, he said. "They can't get released from Palmdale to get up."

Walker said he had not participated in discussions on the issue with the Federal Aviation Administration but he expected the agency was looking into the problem.

He said he didn't know what the solution would be. "One way would be to carve another highway through the sky in between the military airspace," he said. But that proposal could meet resistance from the Pentagon.

Regional representatives of the FAA could not be reached for comment this morning.