Delays at Logan Airport

Delays at Logan Airport

Case Analysis and Recommendations

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CAUSES OF DELAYS

The primary cause of delays were harsh weather conditions, such as fog, snow, strong northwest winds, etc. Under adverse weather conditions, delays at Logan increased by approximately 7% and the capacity decreased to approximately 78 to 88 operations per hour. The unfavourable weather conditions also resulted in the use of runway configurations which had less than three operational runways. If the northwest winds were severe, only one runway was operational, which caused a further decrease in operations to 40 to 60 operations per hour.

Poor weather conditions also required an increase in separation distances between aircrafts, which further added on to the delays. This was especially a problem for Logan due to their mix of airplanes as 40% of the runway use was by small, non-jet airplanes which had capacities ranging from 9 to 34 passengers. These airplanes flew more slowly and required an even greater distance from larger airplanes.

At Logan, if the demand for the runway use came close to capacity, (even under good weather conditions) it resulted in delays. This means overscheduling was another potential problem, even though it had not been a problem for Logan in the past. From 2000 to 2015, there is an estimated increase in annual passengers from 12.4 million to 37.5 million, thus if overscheduling remains prominent at Logan, it could cause even more delays.

Boston’s geographical location as the far northern coastal city also resulted in slight delays at Logan. For approximately 90% of passengers, Logan was the point of origination or termination rather than a point of transition to another destination. This meant that flights tended to arrive and depart more uniformly over each hour, rather than in clusters like at transitional hubs. Thus there was very little slack time in the system making it harder to recover from delays.

COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF DELAYS

Delays tend to lead to customer dissatisfaction and passengers affected by the delays at Logan may demand compensation. Providing compensation for such passengers may result in Logan incurring higher annual costs (See Appendix A).

The amount of delays at Logan also tarnishes its image in the public eye, for instance it is already considered as the 5th most delayed airport in the country. This negative image may result in a decrease in the number of passengers choosing to fly out from Logan. For example, these passengers may choose other regional airports and may even choose to fly from neighboring cities around Boston. Such a drop in demand may result in annual revenue drops for Logan (See Appendix B).

SOLUTIONS TO MITIGATE DELAYS

So far, Logan Airport has proposed three possible solutions to mitigate delay problems, including utilizing regional airports, building a new runway and applying peak-period pricing strategy.

Regional Solutions

Allocating airlines to regional airports such as T.F. Green Airport and Manchester Airport had mitigated delays at Logan. This approach increases the utilization of regional airports. It also provides convenience for passengers near the regional airports. Overall, this approach contributes to the development of air transportation for Boston and its nearby regions.

However, by diverting Logan’s customers to their competitors, Logan may lose their loyal customers and future potential customers, which makes Logan to incur a certain amount of reduction in the total revenue.

New Runway

Another solution was to build a new runway. The new runway (14/32), which would be located along the southwestern edge of the airport, allows at least two runways to operate regardless of any weather conditions. Building a new runway would cost about $100 million, which is only 10% of the planned budget ($1 billion) to mitigate Logan’s delay problems. According to Massport, the new runway would be used mainly by smaller crafts. This separation of smaller and larger crafts would reduce the variability of airplanes on each runway, which mitigates the issue of Logan’s peculiar mix of airplanes.

However, communities argued that noise pollution caused by planes would hamper the development of the waterfront area, which would be less attractive to both commercial and residential users. As the new runway would be located along the southwestern edge, the operation of the other runways (22R, 22L, and 27) may be interrupted during the construction.

Demand Management

This solution tried to influence the demand pattern of Logan Airport runways. Specifically, it involved charging customers at higher rates in order to reduce the arrival rate during peak periods as well as the variability of overall inflows.

Logan’s on time performance had been considerably improved by implementing the new pricing scheme. It is a relatively easy-to-implement solution compared with the other two. Also, it is a sustainable solution. Appendix C explains why it would be more effective at mitigating delay times in the future.

However, the new pricing scheme was forced to be discontinued after only six months as the DOT deemed it discriminatory against the use of smaller aircrafts. Since fixed landing fees were spread over smaller seating capacity, the increases in ticket prices of small planes would be sharper than that of large planes. Regional carriers and some communities also opposed to implement this solution. In fact, when Logan utilization grows to 45 million users and the proportion of non-jet aircrafts retain its current character, the peak period could stretch from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., which means that 88.7% of weekly operations would be higher priced. Those higher ticket prices would probably force regional carriers to restrict or even cancel operations. In this way major job losses may be aroused. In terms of frequent fliers, they might not be able to afford higher ticket prices any more.

Overall, all the above solutions can mitigate Logan’s delay times to a certain degree. Meanwhile, all of them come with some drawbacks that a part of the involved stakeholders have to bear. Regional solutions and peak-period pricing are not as costly and time-consuming as building a new runway, but they do not help maintain Logan’s customers’ loyalty as well as its competitiveness among other regional airports.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO FAA

To mitigate delays at Logan Airport, we recommend FAA to implement a combination of short-term and long-term strategies. As capacity utilization and variability in demand increase, average flow time increases exponentially. Therefore, Logan should focus on reducing both capacity utilization and variability in demand while balancing the costs of them.