Analysis of Air Transportation for the New York Metroplex: Summer 2007

The New York metroplex airports (JFK, LGA, EWR) provide air transportation service to this critical international economic hub. In the summer of 2007 the flights servicing the NYC metroplex airports experienced excessive delays and cancellations that added significant costs to doing business in New York. These delays can be attributed to changes in daily airport capacity (due to weather) and to airline practices, in accordance with regulations, of scheduling in excess of airport capacity. Previous research has demonstrated that maintaining airline seat capacity by increasing aircraft size and reducing frequency is an economically efficient and feasible solution. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the air transportation service to the New York metroplex airports. The metroplex has service to 109 domestic airports. Thirty six percent of airports serve all three New York airports, while 35% serve two of the airports. For the airports that serve all three NY airports, the average number of flights per day is 24 with a maximum of 60. These flights have an average seat size ranging from 41 to 178 with an average of 91 seats per flight. During the summer of 2007, these flights had passenger load factors ranging from 53% to 91% with an average of 71%. This yields an average of 633 unused seats per day on these routes. Additional statistics and discussion of these results on the implications for consolidation of service with larger aircraft and reduced frequency is discussed.