Auctions for airline takeoff and landing slots, continued

Feds Go Forward With NYC Airport Experiment

Plans for slot auctions at LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark continue, but it sounds like the fight is far from over.

"Federal transportation officials say much of the reason for nationwide flight delays is that airlines have tried to cram too many planes -- and too many small planes -- onto New York runways, and the overscheduling just isn't realistic.
To fix that, they have capped the number of flights coming into or out of those airports, and now intend to auction off a fraction of those coveted slots to airline bidders. An auction, they say, will use market forces of supply and demand to make the flight schedule more efficient."
...
" Critics of the plan are furious.
''It is simply shocking that the DOT is unabashedly continuing this ideological battle despite the staunch opposition from the entire aviation community and the independent finding that the DOT lacks the power under the law to implement the proposal in the first place,'' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement."