The Bermuda Triangle of Airports
Jun 27th, 2007 by the wrw
Each week I fly between what I unaffectionately call the “Bermuda Triangle” of airports - O’Hare and Newark. While two airports don’t create a triangle, the effects of traveling between these two airports is just as odd things seen in the Bermuda Triangle: planes for some reason can’t break the gravitational pull of earth when they are scheduled to do so! The effect “strange effect” most often seen is a delay of at a minimum of 45 minutes, but typically delays are 90 minutes or more.
The airports in the New York Tristate area earned the dubious honor of being the worst airports for on-time departures in the country according to a recent FAA report. This is not new news, in November 2005, Senator Charles Schumer completed his own report which came to the same conclusions. While the actual language of the Schumer report is more civil in it’s condemnation of the FAA and the Tristate airports, I think the Gothamist most succinctly summarized the report: NYC Area Airports Suck, Says Schumer. ‘Nuff said.
I think the FAA and Schumer’s reports have only looked at one half of the problem. The study I would like to see is what are the best, or worst combinations of airports (or routes) for air travel. For example, am I better served traveling between O’Hare and Philly and then driving North a hour and half then traveling directly Newark? If this study was done, I can only guess that the Newark and Chicago combo would have to be rated the worst.
Is there a report that tracks problematic routes? To be continued…
