Quota System for Landings

To ease the skyjam, the Federal Aviation Administration this week will begin limiting the number of takeoffs and landings during peak periods at five of the busiest U.S. airports. The five: Chicago's O'Hare, New York's John F. Kennedy and La Guardia, Newark and Washington's National. During the crush from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at J.F.K., for example, the number of flights will be held to 90 per hour, 20 fewer than the highs of last summer, when two-hour delays were common.

The quotas have forced airlines to spread flights more evenly throughout the day and night, despite the public's preference for departures at dinnertime. The flights that the airlines have shifted to off-hours are mostly those headed for smaller towns; thus, a traveler destined for Podunk or Puddle Junction may have to go at 10 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. The quotas also sharply reduce the number of private-plane landings during busy hours.

Even with the quotas, the FAA concedes that rush-hour delays of up to one hour will have to be considered "reasonable." John Shaffer, a former vice president of TRW, Inc., who is the new FAA administrator, says that the quotas are merely a "Band-Aid approach" that does not solve the real problems. Inadequate airports and traffic-control systems have been overwhelmed by the 101% increase in air traffic within the past decade. A program to automate air-traffic control more fully is two years behind schedule.

Construction of improved air towers, radar and instrument landing systems has been hampered by the tendency of Congress to keep appropriations low except when crashes focus public attention on air safety. This parsimony seems dangerous in view of the fact that in the U.S. last year the number of fatal accidents in general aviation increased 15%, and the number of airline fatalities per 100 million passenger-miles rose from .286 to .297.

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