Capacity Improvement Potential for the New York Metroplex System

The New York airspace is the most congested in the U.S. air transportation network. Increasing capacity in this area is critical to ensure the balanced growth of trac across the U.S. This analysis quanties the potential for improvement in airspace capacity by measuring the capacity envelopes for six dierent congurations of the New York airspace and comparing them to the maximum observed capacities at each airport. The comparison shows that the total airspace capacity is at least 20% lower than the combined capacity of the four airports. This nding suggests that if the New York airports could operate without any interactions, substantial capacity gains could be achieved. These gains can be realized by optimizing the delivery and acceptance of trac to and from these airports. The increased precision of navigation technologies to be used in the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will enable some of this additional capacity to be attained. The study also considers some examples of additional capacity gains that could be realized by changing approach and departure procedures to reduce inter-airport interaction using NextGen technologies. Such procedural changes can attain large additional capacity benets by allowing each airport to operate close to their decoupled capacity.