WASHINGTON — To try to ease what he called an "epidemic of aviation delays," President Bush on Thursday announced a series of new measures -- including a temporary Thanksgiving "express lane" for commercial airplanes in military airspace -- to head off what many feared could be the worst holiday travel season ever.
Saying that Thanksgiving was becoming "a season of dread for too many Americans," Bush said his administration would take immediate steps to boost airport capacity and alleviate East Coast congestion, which administration officials described as a "choke point" that affects air travel all the way to the West Coast.
The airline industry's on-time performance this year has been its worst on record. Airlines have scheduled more flights to larger airports, creating congestion in key corridors. And in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the industry slashed its workforce, which meant fewer workers to handle disruptions and fewer crews to fly planes.
Bush's plan comes as the country faces what may be its busiest Thanksgiving travel season ever, and federal officials said the smallest disruptions or instance of bad weather risked locking up travel across the country.
"Airports are very crowded, travelers are being stranded and flights are delayed, sometimes with a full load of passengers sitting on the runway for hours," the president said in televised remarks from White House's Roosevelt Room. These problems "carry some real costs for the country, not just in the inconvenience they cause, but in the business they obstruct and family gatherings they cause people to miss," he said.
Among other steps, the administration wants to discourage airlines from overbooking by doubling the compensation they must pay to passengers who are involuntarily bumped and cannot be placed on another flight within a certain period of time. Under proposed rules, which had been previously announced, passengers bumped and delayed by two hours or less would be paid $400; those bumped and delayed more than two hours would be paid $800.
If approved, the rules would take effect next summer.
Flight delays erupted into a major political issue when a Valentine's Day ice storm hit New York's John F. Kennedy airport. The storm stranded thousands of JetBlue passengers, some for almost 10 hours as their plane sat on the tarmac. Over the next several days the airline canceled hundreds of flights.
Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said Thursday that three-quarters of delays are on flights that begin, end or pass through the New York metropolitan region.
But she said that West Coast passengers would also see benefits from fewer delays in cross-country flights.
"Just as some urban areas open up the shoulders of their highway to ease rush-hour commutes, opening these holiday rush lanes in the sky will give pilots additional options for flying around bad weather and speed traffic from New York airports," Peters said.
This is the first time the government has opened a military flight path from Maine to Florida before an expected air-travel crisis. In the past, the military has permitted civilian planes to use its airspace above 24,000 feet in case of storms or other emergencies.
"To pre-negotiate this in advance of the holiday period is what's new this time and will allow us to schedule operations on those flight lanes," Peters said.
The Air Force said the ceded airspace is reserved for training, and few, if any, training missions take place over Thanksgiving. "Our military operations will not be affected," said Maj. Monica Bland, an Air Force spokeswoman.
There are roughly a dozen north-south air corridors along the Eastern Seaboard, aviation officials said, and use of the military airspace would effectively add two more.
Peters has also asked airports and airlines around the country to increase the amount of equipment, such as baggage carts, available during the holiday period and to bring on additional staff, such as baggage handlers.
To improve air traffic control, the Federal Aviation Administration has canceled all nonessential maintenance and construction to add controllers during the holiday period.
"We're staffing up, making sure that we have everything in place to prevent delays to the greatest extent we can," Peters said.
The administration is also considering a plan to charge airlines higher fees for scheduling flights at popular travel times. The approach, known as "congestion pricing," is designed to give airlines and passengers an incentive to travel at off-peak times.
The airlines "will pass some costs on, but the fact is, customers are paying the price today with lack of reliability, lack of predictability, lack of knowing if they can get there on time," Peters said. "As we open up additional capacity through congestion pricing, price will even off, we'll see a leveling, so we don't see a long-term increase in prices."
