Mineta: Airport capacity is key to U.S. aviation supremacy

Mineta: Airport capacity is key to U.S. aviation supremacy    The United States must modernize and expand its air transportation system if it is to avoid gridlock and damage to the economy, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said Tuesday.
   Mineta challenged government and industry to develop a next-generation air transportation system during a speech at the Aero Club of Washington, saying a new aviation initiative was necessary in order to prevent Europe from overtaking the United States as the global leader in setting aviation standards and economic policy.
   “If the United States wants to retain its global air transportation leadership we need to modernize and transform our air transportation system — starting right now,” he said.
   Mineta said he will take the lead to articulate a unified vision of a future air transport system that incorporates the goals of the National Air and Space Administration, and the departments of Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security.
   Increased demand and new forms of flight require a bold approach, he said. “The changes that are coming are too big, too fundamental for incremental adaptations of the infrastructure.”
   Last week the DOT brokered an agreement with the two largest users of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, United Airlines and American Airlines, to cut flights during peak hours 5 percent to relieve congestion there, and minimize delays cascading throughout the aviation network. But Mineta said the nation cannot rely on such stopgap measures to maintain a healthy aviation system.
   “Restricting and rationing service cannot be our long-term answer to congestion. We cannot allow government to get back into the business of regulating the economics of air transportation,” Mineta said, according to a copy of his speech.
   While the proposed measures focus on problems with passenger travel, congestion anywhere in the system slows the movement of freight because cargo is carried in passenger planes and cargo planes have to share takeoff and landing slots with other aircraft.
   Mineta said the system could increase capacity through a combination of technology and infrastructure development. The secretary said he has instructed the department to develop a comprehensive strategy to promote technology that will help reduce future air traffic delays, improve airport management and maximize safety and security.
   In the meantime, the country is making incremental progress expanding airports. Last year, runway capacity increased 4 percent with new runways in Denver, Miami, Houston and Orlando, Fla. A five-year plan calls for seven new runways, as well as a runway extension in Cleveland, adding a combined 6.5 percent extra capacity to the system. In the next two years, seven new air traffic control towers, six new terminal air traffic control facilities, advanced radar systems at 12 airports and other air traffic control systems at 16 airports are planned, he said.