In the US, one in five flights is nowbeing delayed every hour, owing to over scheduling. Flight cancellations havealso soared to an approximate figure of one in thirty.

Most of the major airlines admit to overscheduling flights but justify this action on grounds of competition and thatthere is no rule against this practice.

Last year was probably the worst year inthe history of the American aviation industry in terms of flight delays.Surveys have shown that American airline travellers waited for an approximatetotal of 285 million hours, that is, nearly 32,477 years! This year with theholiday season just around the corner, air travellers might have to wait forlonger hours to get to their respective destinations.

So, how did the American airports get to beso congested? And above all, what is the solution to this ever-increasingproblem?

For many years now, researchers have beenobserving this problem, which seems to brewing for more than a decade.

Going to the airport in the United Statesis generally a spirit-crushing experience, and our researchers predicted thatit will only get worse. As a result of which, our passengers have becomeimmensely frustrated with not having a predictable and comfortable flight.

The most serious problem that most of themajor airports encounter is overscheduling of flights. Overscheduling cause's flightdelays and cancellations, this in turn ruins the travelling experience for thepassenger nationwide.

What's more, utilizing technology to helprelieve this over scheduling problem will do very little or practically nothingto erase this problem. Many of the actions that are required to be taken inorder to relieve the industry of overscheduling and flight delays are notlimited to the technical community itself. The government needs to take part inthis by first understanding what the causes for these problems are. And, thepublic needs to do their duty by pushing them into take action so that we canhave a safe, comfortable and predictable air transportation system.

While flight delays and cancellations areinconvenient and annoying, there are other serious safety hazards that arecaused due to over scheduling of flights. Research has shown that there is astrong correlation between overcrowded flight schedules and safety issues. Whenschedules are found to be congested, there is usually a definite loss ofaircraft separation. The tighter the airline schedule is, the more unsafe thetransportation system is found to be.

When flights are overscheduled at aparticular airport, they are generally trying to land safely at a faster ratethan the airport runway can accept. This however, puts an immense amount ofpressure on traffic controllers, as they attempt to keep flight delays at lowlevels while at the same time keeping the planes away from each other. In thepast, airplanes circling over the airport terminal waiting for a safe place toland have been the cause of plenty of accidents, thus, air traffic controllershave now started making attempts to get these planes down on the runway beforethis is any sort of air-borne accident.

Whyis Overscheduling so common in American Airports?

Most European passengers tend to experiencea much more enjoyable and predictable flight experience as compared to theirAmerican counterparts. This is because the European regulation agencies makeuse of slot controls and forbid airlines to schedule more flights than theconcerned airport can actually handle.

The congestion in the US is mainlycaused due to the deregulation of the airline industry in the 70's. When theselaws were passed, they took away all government control over the scheduling offlights at any given time at any given airport.

Howto solve this problem?

So, the passengers of today are beingtreated terribly and have grown so accustomed to it that they have now startedto accept this treatment. If the passengers can find a way to make their voicesheard, changes will surely come. The government has to find a way to fix theproblem.

Airlines are not ready to reduce theirschedules because they feel that their competition will get ahead of them inthat case. Owing to the antitrust laws, airlines are not allowed to gettogether and jointly reduce each of their schedules.

A number of solutions have been proposed toalleviate this problem that includes:

• Implementing the use of larger aircraft so as to reduce the number of flights, thus relieving congestion in the air traffic between major airports.
• There has to be shared use of airport capacity in some of the congested metros.
• Greater use of charter flights and regional jets.
• Congestion pricing at metropolitan airports.

In the long run, the need to increase theoverall efficiency and capacity of the country's major airports is of utmostimportance. New technology will hopefully improve the separation space betweenthe flights, but technology alone cannot unclog this congestion.

Hopefully, passengers will begin tocomprehend the seriousness of the situation and put pressure on the governmentto take action.

Keeping all of this in mind, the charterindustry has now begun to flourish. As an ardent admirer of charter flights(FMI ? FMGM), I have never had to go through flight delays, cancellations, andover scheduling.