US FAA: Record US Air Delays in 2000

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

yahoo

Thursday February 1 10:06 AM ET U.S. FAA: Record U.S. Air Delays in 2000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government said on Thursday airline flight delays rose a sharp 20 percent in 2000 to hit a record.

Almost 30 percent of national delays attributed to increased volume of flights were blamed on congestion at New York's LaGuardia Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) said.

A decline in December delays did not offset the record annual pace, which was blamed mostly on bad weather.

There were just over 29,000 air traffic operations delayed 15 minutes or more in December, compared with more than 34,000 in November, the FAA said.

For the year, there were 450,000 delays, an increase of 20 percent over 1999. Bad weather was blamed for 68 percent of the late flights.

LaGuardia, which was ranked as the second-most congested airport in 1999 behind Newark International Airport, jumped to No. 1 with 18,026 delays. It accounted for just over 28 percent of all volume delays nationally.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 01, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ