The FAA Follies

Nothing can hurt you more than having your hopes and dreams dashed because you relied on someone else’s promise, especially after you invest $30,000,000.

Porter Airlines has been running 7 daily round-trip flights between Toronto Island and Newark Liberty since March 31st of this year. Now they seem to be miffed that they will lose 2 of those runs each weekday. I found this to be a bit odd since Secretary of Transportaion Mary Peters announced that flights were going to be cut or rescheduled at Newark even before the New Year. Surely representatives from Porter were allowed to participate in the brain-storming sessions that dealt with the delays. I mean, you can’t just decide on Friday to start an airline (or a new route) on Monday. Somebody had to know that Porter was coming. Two new Q400s, a terminal expansion at Toronto Island, online ticket sales and a faulty knowledge of airspace, procedures and runway use at Newark:

The carrier said that while it sympathizes with efforts to reduce congestion at New York-area airports, the turboprops are able to use the shorter “runway 11/29″ in Newark, leaving slots available on longer runways for jets.

Porter added that its Q400s fly at “underutilized low-altitude turboprop airspace around Newark/New York.”

If someone had asked, I could have told you. You can’t always get what you want. The shorter runway isn’t always available. That underutilized low-level turboprop airspace? That’s all 30 or more miles from the airport. There isn’t any secret airspace in Northern New Jersey. There are very few capacity issues in the air. No, its all just regurgitated blather from either the airport operator (The Port Authority of NY/NJ) or Central Flow. No one at Porter invented the overflow runway or the use of it. They were simply sold some snake oil, months ago, by one of Blakey’s hucksters.

Porter Airlines chief Robert Deluce explains it quite nicely:

“We would have never started up service in New York if we had any indication that we would only have five flights,” Deluce said.

The changes, he added, will hit Porter disproportionately.

“The schedule they’re giving us under the draft order is not viable,” he said.

If anyone at Porter sees this, The Follies will gladly accept your accurate timeline or any other information regarding how the FAA misled you/your company. We work for them, we’re used to it.