Essay: ON FLYING MORE AND ENJOYING IT LESS

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There is the prospect of change on the horizon. Some cities—most notably Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Tampa and Dallas-Fort Worth—are now spending millions to create jet-age airports. At Tampa, for instance, travelers will park their cars in the terminal, then be whisked by "horizontal elevator" to departure gates. At other new terminals, cars or buses will drop passengers within 600 feet of the gate. Most radical and sensible of all is Los Angeles' plan to carry people via a subterranean transit system to planes on the runway and ready for takeoff.

Alas, new airports produce as much resistance as relief. Most people would rather have an ABM site in their backyard than the constant thunder and stench of a big jetport. Austin Tobin, executive director of the Port of New York Authority, has fought for a fourth New York jetport for almost ten years. "Can we balance the rights of the many against the rights of the few?" he asks. So far, minority rule has won the day, but now something must give.

As so often happens these days, the first step toward reform has turned out to be the shock of failure. Last summer planes were stacked up for hours every day over the "Golden Triangle" airports bounded by New York, Washington and Chicago. Every separate aviation group (each served by its own persuasive lobby in Washington) had its favorite scapegoat. Private pilots blamed the airlines for overscheduling. Airline pilots blamed private aviation for taking up scarce runway space. The air-traffic controllers blamed FAA for not providing enough trained men or electronic equipment. FAA sighed and passed the blame along to Congress for not appropriating enough money. A bill that would have pumped $3 billion into airways and ground facilities never got out of committee.

Even so, the buck-passing generated a market for solutions. Both Eastern and American airlines are developing short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft capable of carrying some 100 passengers at 400 m.p.h. on short hops between cities. Out of the Viet Nam war may come new kinds of helicopters, combining rotors and fixed wings. Many cities are discussing an old but excellent idea: expanding small existing airports in order to lure private planes away from big congested jetports.

Better safety devices are being tested. One is a radio transmitter and a device that sets off an alarm when two planes are on collision course. It instructs one pilot to fly up, the other down. To relieve overburdened controllers, the FAA has begun to install computerized radar control systems at a few airports; these automatically print out aircraft identification, altitude and speed.

But all this will take time—and something must be done to avoid another great stack-up this summer. In reluctant response, the Federal Government, starting June 1, will assign hourly quotas for arriving and departing flights at the Golden Triangle airports. This should help divert more private aircraft to small airports, and perhaps persuade airlines to start cutting their peak-hour flights—a decision they should make voluntarily.

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