FAA Grant to Study Bay Area Airport Gridlock

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission will use a $585,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to study ways to avoid gridlock at Bay Area airports. The SF Chronicle reports that among options to be considered are persuading airlines to resume flying larger aircraft, developing high-speed rail, expanding capacity at major airports, and better use of the area’s general aviation airports.

MTC’s most recent Regional Airport System Plan was updated in 2000 and also considers alternatives.

And to the south, passengers using Los Angeles International experienced flight delays in four of every five flights. But as the Los Angeles Times reports, that’s better than the national average of one in three. Overall system performance is so bad that fully one-third of all flights during January – June 2007 were late.