The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“O'HARE DELAYS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4730-H4731 on June 22, 2004.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INDEPENDENCE AIRLINES/O'HARE DELAYS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gerlach). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my great concern that schedules recently implemented by the new carrier Independence Air will undermine the hard work that the FAA has done for this summer's service to O'Hare International Airport. This is an issue where we should all be concerned, considering that delays at O'Hare not only impact my district but also shake the entire national aviation system.
Beginning this past winter and continuing through spring, the DOT and the FAA worked carefully with the two largest carriers at O'Hare, American Airlines and United Airlines, to reduce schedules during the peak hours for this summer season. Those airlines agreed to reduce their schedules in the busy afternoon and evening hours, first by 5 percent and later by another 2.5 percent. This notable effort was widely announced by the DOT and the airlines as an important step in reducing delays at O'Hare and throughout the entire national airspace system during this peak season.
However, Independence Air, a new airline operating small 50-seat regional jets, has announced they will have 12 new round trips per day from Washington Dulles to O'Hare. This service has at least five round trips in the peak hours and began last week on June 16.
Mr. Speaker, this offering of new service, especially with small regional jets, is not only unfair to those airlines who made the schedule cuts but also undermines the work of the Department of Transportation and adds delays during the busy summer months. The new service adds only 600 seats per day in each direction, but uses 12 round trips' worth of takeoff and landing capacity.
Furthermore, the Chicago-Washington market already has plenty of service, including 10 round trips with full-sized low-fair jets by Southwest between BWI and Midway, ATA Airlines between Reagan National and Midway, and even more service by American and United Airlines from Reagan National to O'Hare. Meanwhile, American and United have had to reduce service in smaller, less-served markets to free up capacity at O'Hare.
The bottom line is that operational restrictions at O'Hare will not solve the delay problem over the long run. The answer to the delay problem is increasing capacity through the O'Hare Modernization Program, OMP. Therefore, I do hope that the completion of the OMP's environmental impact statement, the ESI, will move forward as expeditiously as possible.
In the meantime, I am concerned about Independence Air, because the Department's future ability to work with existing carriers to reduce schedules will be ruined if a schedule agreement can be so quickly and easily undermined.
I hope that this is an issue that we can study more in depth at an aviation subcommittee hearing in the coming months. I ask that the DOT work quickly with Independence Air to shift these planned flights out of the peak periods at O'Hare this summer.
I would also appreciate an explanation as to how future scheduling agreements can be enforced. Without an enforcement mechanism, a voluntary scheduling production process cannot work in the future. Time is of the essence. We must give this issue the attention it needs and deserves and work to prevent the millions of passengers who pass through O'Hare Airport from being delayed.
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