A Travel Weekly analysis of airport departure times throughout the summer confirms what everyone has assumed all along: Airplanes taking off from New York-area airports are more likely to leave late than planes departing other major regions, and by a significant margin.
While New York-area airports improved their departure rates over the summer months, they still lagged behind the improvements made by other regions.
At Newark Liberty, for example, the percentage of flights departing within 15 minutes of schedule sank to 24.6% in June during the busy 9 p.m. to 9:59 p.m. time slot when many overnight international flights depart, according to Transportation Department statistics released as part of its monthly Air Travel Consumer report.
That was the worst rate for any time slot during the summer months among the six major airports analyzed by Travel Weekly.
Chicago O'Hare fared a little better, with 39.8%, the second-worst for that time slot, DOT data showed.
By August, Newark had improved in that time slot, to 48.2%. Chicago, meanwhile, had improved to 72.7%.
Records better on early flights
The one trend common to all airports was a reasonably high on-time departure rate for early morning flights. The on-time rate then began to dip lower throughout the day, bottoming out in the late-afternoon rush hour, then climbing back up for the last flights of the night.
For the most part, the deterioration in departure reliability at New York-area airports started sooner in the daily cycle, plunged deeper and lasted longer than airports in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago.
There are some exceptions. In August, for example, the 67.8% rate for Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport was below LaGuardia's 71.4%.
But the analysis shows the New York-area airports deserve their reputation for delays. Through the busiest part of the day, 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., the percentage of delayed departures consistently hovered around half or less.
The airports have fared little better in the recent past when it comes to arrivals. From January to September 2007, only 57% of flights at Newark arrived on time, the worst in the nation.
LaGuardia and Kennedy ranked second and third worst, with on-time arrival rates of 58% and 59% respectively, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates all three airports.
The FAA acknowledges the problem.
"LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports consistently rank as the nation's three most delayed airports," FAA Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell told Congress this year.
But a ripple effect spreads the pain throughout aviation, both domestic and international.
Last year, New York airports handled more than 104 million passengers, the Port Authority said. Since 75% of the nation's flight delays originate in the New York metropolitan area, the Port Authority concluded that their three airports accounted for a third of the nation's air travel delays.
The DOT and FAA plan to ease some of the congestion that exacerbate these delays by auctioning flight slots, a controversial idea that has sparked opposition by airlines, industry lobbyists and the Port Authority (see related story, this page).
While disagreeing with the FAA on slot auctions, the Port Authority, airlines and lobbyists generally support the FAA's overall plan to deploy a "Next Generation" air traffic control system based on GPS technology.
In the meantime, the FAA has imposed flight caps and restrictions on the New York-area airports to cut congestion and delays, but the on-time performance data suggests that it's not enough.
Despite such efforts, in August, between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. only a third of the flights left on time at Kennedy, fewer than half did so at Newark, while LaGuardia fared the best of the three, with a 56.2% on-time departure rate.