LaGuardia: Prime example of today's airport woes

Twenty-five percent of all flight delays in the United States can be traced back to a delay at New York City's LaGuardia Airport

From Garrick Utley

NEW YORK (CNN) -- No American airport has offered more frustration to those who use and run it than New York City's LaGuardia, the most congested and -- last year -- the most delay-plagued airport in the nation.

At one point, more than one in four departures left LaGuardia late. The Federal Aviation Administration calculates that even a four-minute interruption in takeoffs and landings at the airport affects 250 other flights.

And the ripples spread ever wider. Twenty-five percent of all flight delays in the United States can be traced back to a delay at LaGuardia.

In its first year of operation, in 1940, the airport handled a total of 250 flights in the entire summer, including international flights.

"This airport handled all of the international traffic from here across the sea," says Geoffrey Arend, editor of Air Cargo News. "If you wanted to go to England or Ireland or France or Italy or anyplace, you had to come to this little terminal, to this little airport."

Smaller, swanker

The airport was more elegant then, with formal restaurants rather than the fast-food courts of today. LaGuardia was also the first airport to have shops and services for waiting passengers.

Most of all, it offered convenience, and still does. It's less than a 30-minute taxi ride to the center of Manhattan.

As a result, everyone wants to land and leave from LaGuardia, and the airlines schedule more flights there. And so at its peak last year, there were 96 flights coming and going each hour.

That was 15 more each hour than the FAA found controllers could safely handle, particularly since the two runways intersect, and there's no room to expand.

The real problem, though, is not on the ground, but in the air.

According to those who run New York City's airports, too many planes fly with too few passengers.

"We have a number of airlines that are at 5-percent load factors. What happened is that one airline would put on a flight to some city, and two other airlines for competitive, defensive reasons would put on identical flights," says Neil Levin, general manager for the Port Authority of New York.

New limits imposed

Then there's the rapid growth of regional and commuter flights. A plane carrying two passengers takes up the same space, time and slot as one carrying 200.

The FAA has imposed new limits on the number of flights using LaGuardia. What will that mean for travelers?

"You will not have all the choices in terms of the numbers of flights, but hopefully what you will get in return for that is the ability to take off on time," Levin says.

Our sense of that has changed, too.

In the early days of commercial aviation, some passengers are said to have asked for money back if their flight arrived ahead of schedule, because they felt they had been denied the full, promised thrill of flying.

Today, we'd settle for the thrill of arriving and leaving on time.