Kennedy and LaGuardia seeing fewer flight delays, cancellations as FAA trims cutback, says FlightAware
At JFK International Airport Terminal 8 there were very few delayed or canceled flights on Saturday. Credit: Jeff Bachner
New York’s biggest airports were on track to have fewer delays and cancellations on Saturday, as federal officials roll back flight reductions following the end of the country’s longest government shutdown.
The Federal Aviation Administration first imposed a 4% flight reduction at 40 major airports on Nov. 7. The measure was intended to lessen the workload for air traffic controllers, who had not been paid for their work since the government shutdown began on Oct. 1.
After President Donald Trump signed a funding bill that ended the government shutdown on Wednesday, the FAA paused its flight cuts at 6% — rather than increasing to its planned 10% — and further slashed its flight reductions to 3% beginning at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
The shift appeared to be having an impact at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports as of roughly 10:30 a.m. Saturday, when the rate of hourly delays was markedly less at both airports compared with Friday, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.
LaGuardia had 22 delays and six cancellations by mid-morning on Saturday. At that rate, it was on track to have about 50 delays and 14 cancellations by the end of the day, down from 137 delays and 20 cancellations on Friday. That’s a roughly 64% and 30% decrease, respectively.
Kennedy Airport was poised to see a less dramatic change as of 10:30 a.m. Saturday, when there were 45 delays and 13 cancellations reported on FlightAware. That put Kennedy on track to have 23% fewer delays and 9% fewer cancellations on Saturday than it did on Friday, when there were 133 delays and 32 cancellations, respectively.
The FAA has not said when it would end flight reductions.
In its news release on Friday, the agency wrote the current 3% reduction "will remain in place while the FAA monitors system performance throughout the weekend and evaluates whether normal operations can resume."
Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
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