In a news conference last week, the President and the Sec of Transportation announced that "Thanksgiving Express Lanes" would be opened through Special Use Airspace to alleviate East Coast congestion. In the press conference quoted below, the FAA said they had a diagram - has anyone seen this, or have a link to it?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071115-8.html
Q Can you explain a little bit further about how this military airspace is going to work? How many planes might it be able to accommodate? Don't you still have to land those same planes at the airports with the runways? So how will that help delays, ultimately, even if can get them there faster?
SECRETARY PETERS: Well, Lisa, there's a couple problems. One is with the takeoffs. Depending on where the plane is going, you could have more traffic going into the same area, and that's the case when we don't have these military routes. And I'm going to defer to Nancy to give us an answer about how many more planes they may be able to accommodate. But what it would do is move some of these planes off -- and Nancy, I think you have a map that would show us this. In fact, why don't you jump in here.
MS. KALINOWSKI: We have a diagram for you, and we can give it to you on email if you want it. But what we're talking about is the warning areas that are off the coast of the East Coast of the United States. And this is special-use airspace that is joint use; it is normally used by the military all the time -- they're doing exercises out there. And we worked an agreement with them to be able to release this airspace back to the civilian market so that the civilian airlines can use this airspace during the busy holiday season, during this Thanksgiving season. And what it does is, is it does allow -- we were able to put a route through that airspace, which essentially gets people out of the New York area quicker, especially if we have weather up and down the East Coast.
Now, during the summertime when we have storms, we can work in a real-time basis with the military in order to try to have access. But they use this every day. So now they are essentially giving us a five-day block that we can use the airspace and the airlines' can plan ahead.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071115-8.html
Q Can you explain a little bit further about how this military airspace is going to work? How many planes might it be able to accommodate? Don't you still have to land those same planes at the airports with the runways? So how will that help delays, ultimately, even if can get them there faster?
SECRETARY PETERS: Well, Lisa, there's a couple problems. One is with the takeoffs. Depending on where the plane is going, you could have more traffic going into the same area, and that's the case when we don't have these military routes. And I'm going to defer to Nancy to give us an answer about how many more planes they may be able to accommodate. But what it would do is move some of these planes off -- and Nancy, I think you have a map that would show us this. In fact, why don't you jump in here.
MS. KALINOWSKI: We have a diagram for you, and we can give it to you on email if you want it. But what we're talking about is the warning areas that are off the coast of the East Coast of the United States. And this is special-use airspace that is joint use; it is normally used by the military all the time -- they're doing exercises out there. And we worked an agreement with them to be able to release this airspace back to the civilian market so that the civilian airlines can use this airspace during the busy holiday season, during this Thanksgiving season. And what it does is, is it does allow -- we were able to put a route through that airspace, which essentially gets people out of the New York area quicker, especially if we have weather up and down the East Coast.
Now, during the summertime when we have storms, we can work in a real-time basis with the military in order to try to have access. But they use this every day. So now they are essentially giving us a five-day block that we can use the airspace and the airlines' can plan ahead.
