Some Airports Off Limits To Newcomers
MidAmerica Airport Flights May Be Rejected
BELLEVILLE, IL (May 30, 1999) -- Hope to ride a jet from MidAmerica Airport to O'Hare someday?
Sorry, the Chicago airport presently is off limits to newcomers. But a recent political push to open some of the country's busiest destinations may play to St. Clair County's advantage if it can attract an airline or charter service to MidAmerica.
Chicago's O'Hare, Ronald Reagan Washington National, and New York's LaGuardia and JFK airports all operate under what's called the "slot" system, which limits incoming traffic.
Airports or airlines that want access must buy those slots, a term used to denote landing times. Either MidAmerica or an airline that uses the airport might be faced with the cost, depending on the deal they strike, industry experts said.
But at O'Hare, for example, slots are not available at any price. If any were available, they would cost from $750,000 to $2 million apiece, according to a St. Clair County marketing report released in March.
The good news for MidAmerica is that Congress is considering eliminating slots altogether.
Those three cities - Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. - are among the top four destinations for passengers who would consider using MidAmerica. So getting to them is a priority for the airport.
One issue not raised by MidAmerica Airport's passenger-based research is whether travelers would be willing to use reliever airports at those cities, such as Chicago's Midway, which is not slot controlled.
The slot-controlled airports are busier than their relievers -- 32 million people boarded planes at O'Hare in 1997, while only 4 million traveled from Midway.
Both chambers of Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration are working on proposals to either eliminate slots or add more of them, and may decide the issue this summer.
That would be a boost to an airport like MidAmerica, said Jeff Goodell, a vice president for Airports Council International, a Washington, D.C.-based airport advocacy group.
"For an airport trying to get into a high-demand market, removing any impediment will be an advantage," he said. A third of the passengers surveyed who said they would MidAmerica Airport want to travel to those cities.
Buying slots would be a major hurdle for an airline wanting to fly between MidAmerica Airport and O'Hare.
"The cost of MidAmerica access to O'Hare for three daily round-trip flights would be in the range of $4.5 million to $12 million, if those slots were available," the report states. "The airport would be in national competition for the use of those slots and it's likely the economics are not there."
Goodell, who tracks legislative affairs for the airport group, said both the U.S. House and Senate have proposals in the works, while the FAA's proposal to Congress suggested eliminating slots by 2004.
The house is poised to vote on the issue the week of June 14, according to Frank Miles, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, a Belleville Democrat. The bill does not have specific details about when action on slots would occur, but does indicate they should be phased out.
Mike Cys, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a Republican from Inverness, said the Senate probably will vote in August. Its version does not eliminate slots, but adds 30 at O'Hare and 40 more at Washington National, but leaves New York alone.
Goodell expects some sort of compromise. "There is a feeling that slots discourage competition," he said. "That's why there is a political move to eliminate them."
Information provided by the Belleville News-Democrat
Michael Shaw Article
© Belleville News-Democrat
| 
Email
Return to Home Page