New York JFK Airport

[hkskyline]

Source : http://www.pbase.com/david_dong/blizzard_of_06_nyc_

[dynamicdezzy]

Originally Posted by MrColombia

Have the improved the Jamaica station? I mean its not the greatest location to have PASSENGERS transfer to go to Manhattan.

I still dont like that POINT of TRANSFER they could have done better........

They have revamped the Jamaica station (for LIRR). Besides its not like you step off the train and then get robbed. Its not the best neighborhood but theres no harm in taking public transportation from there.

[MrColombia]

I have a question?

Do all American Airlines flights fly out o the same TERMINAL? Which is TERMNAL 8 or 9?

[hkskyline]

Originally Posted by MrColombia

I have a question?

Do all American Airlines flights fly out o the same TERMINAL? Which is TERMNAL 8 or 9?

I believe there is some renovation work going on in T8 but T9 is fairly new and AA uses both.

[MrColombia]

May 2007 JFK INTL' AIPORT

[MrColombia]

I took this quick shot of T9 at 3AM


It looked very nice and modern, i loved the lighting.



T9

[Taylorhoge]

great winter shots

[hkskyline]

Feds propose flight scheduling limit at JFK airport
20 October 2007

NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. transportation officials say that delay-plagued John F. Kennedy International Airport shouldn't try to handle more than 80 takeoffs or landings per hour, substantially fewer than are now scheduled for some peak travel times.

JFK now has some hours when airlines plan for as many as 100 flights, a number that nearly everyone agrees is more than the congested hub can handle, even in ideal weather.

Airline officials are slated to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration this month to talk about possible reductions in the airport's schedule.

The Department of Transportation said late Friday that it had suggested an hourly cap of 80 flights as a starting point for those discussions. It also proposed a target of no more than 44 flights in any given half-hour, or 24 during any 15 minute period.

It's unclear how authorities would ration flight slots in instances where competing airlines wished to fly more planes than the cap allowed. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has said she favors "market-based" solutions to the delay problem, but might consider mandatory scheduling restrictions.

The proposed 80-flight cap was criticized by the Air Transport Association of America, an group that represents commercial air carriers, and by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs JFK.

"This is a disappointing decision," the group's president, James May, said in a written statement. "Slashing operations at JFK alone will not solve the congestion problem but will shut the door on growth for our country's leading international gateway."

PA spokesman Steve Sigmund said his bi-state agency had provided the FAA with 17 other suggestions on handling congestion earlier this year.

"Putting a `No Vacancy' sign on one airport isn't a solution to the flight delay problem," Sigmund said. "The right thing for the FAA to do is to implement long-term solutions to meet demand and expand capacity."

Airlines have been asking aviation officials to take other steps to relieve congestion, including flight-path changes and technological improvements they say could increase the airport's capacity.

A few airlines operating at JFK, however, have also called for some temporary caps on flights until those other solutions emerge, including its biggest domestic carrier, JetBlue.

JetBlue CEO David Barger asked the FAA in a letter last June to consider imposing flight slot controls "during all hours when scheduled operations exceed the balanced average capacity of the airport."

Such restrictions on flights used to be the norm at JFK.

Until last January, the FAA limited flight activity between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., the airport's busiest period, and the time when it is handling the most international flights.

Even before those restrictions were lifted, the number of scheduled flights -- and the number of delays -- had begun to soar.

In August, only 59 percent of arrivals and 63 percent of departures at JFK were on time, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. During the same month a year ago, nearly 70 percent of arrivals and 72 percent of departures were on time.

[Cidade_Branca]

Wow

[hkskyline]

US puts pressure on airlines to cut JFK schedules

WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. government pressured airlines on Monday to cooperate with efforts to reduce delays at New York's John F. Kennedy airport by ensuring it can impose schedule cuts if carriers fail to act voluntarily.

In a regulatory filing one day before the Transportation Department convenes an unusual JFK scheduling conference with the airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration gave the facility its rarely used worst congestion rating.

The designation ensures schedule reductions for spring and summer travel will occur whether airlines agree to them or not. It also formally extends FAA authority to cut schedules of overseas carriers at JFK, if necessary. Dozens of international airlines operate flights there, including British Airways and AirFrance/KLM .

Delays at Kennedy and other New York area airports can affect flights nationally. The FAA already limits the number of takeoffs and landings at LaGuardia, which is close to JFK.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters called the two-day scheduling meeting after President George W. Bush ordered her to devise a strategy to improve airline service and cut delays, which are on a record pace in 2007.

Chicago O'Hare, where peak-hour flights were reduced three years ago to ease delays, is the only other U.S. airport that operates under the "Level 3" congestion designation.

At the meeting starting Tuesday, domestic airlines will discuss JFK scheduling for the busy spring and summer season, the most lucrative for carriers.

"Our strong preference is to develop market-based solutions that will address delays and preserve passenger choice," Peters said in a statement. "But we will consider scheduling reductions as a last resort in order to prevent a repeat of this summer's nightmare delays."

Schedule changes would affect airlines including JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines . JetBlue is based at JFK, while Delta has a major hub. Other carriers also operate there but have fewer flights.

According to the FAA, preliminary flight schedule information for summer 2008 shows that airlines plan to increase flights at JFK. The agency wants no more than 80 flights per hour from 6 a.m. through 2:59 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. From 3 p.m. to 7:59 p.m., the cap would be 81.

Daily operations at JFK increased 41 percent from March 2006 to August 2007 compared with the same period a year earlier. At the same time, on-time arrivals fell from 69 percent to 61 percent. Delays exceeding more than one hour were up 114 percent.

This past summer, weekday demand at 4 p.m., the busiest time of the day, was more than 110 scheduled arrivals and departures. Airlines exceeded the airport's capacity at other times of the day as well, the FAA said.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, JFK's operator, said the FAA's proposal would cut flights to levels not seen since the late 1960s and hurt business.

"The FAA's action would simply put a 'no vacancy' sign up at one of the nation's busiest airports and then simply walk away from the problem," Port Authority Executive Director Anthony Shorris said in a statement.

[Stratosphere 2020]

Woh this will hit New York Tourism industry very hard eventually. Limited flights and seats means increase in airfare.

[bobbycuzin]

ever take the train there during the middle of the night for an early morning flight? shadddddddddddy people staring at you and your luggage

[MrColombia]

Is there a possibility in closing La Guardia and expanding JFK to run as NYC only AIRPORT?


Personally i think Newark should be moved as well....but its location its so strategic thats gonna be hard. NJ deserves a bigger airport.

[hkskyline]

JFK feral-cat roundup elicits yowls of protest
26 October 2007

NEW YORK (AP) - Animal advocates are baring their claws over a crackdown on wild cats living at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Dozens of felines are camping out at the busy airfield. Some sympathetic airport workers feed them.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, says the cats create a safety hazard. The spokesman, Pasquale DiFulco, says the cats' food can attract birds, which can fly in and foul up airplane engines.

He says 50 to 75 cats in a cargo area are to be trapped and turned over to animal authorities in the coming days. He says none has been killed.

But the director of the NYC Feral Cat Initiative, Valerie Sicignano, fears they will be if they linger unadopted in animal shelters. She and other cat activists would rather see the cats neutered and then either put up for adoption or returned to the airport.

[milquetoast]

I didn't know J F K was that small.

[hkskyline]

NYC Comptroller Reports Area Flight Delays Getting Worse
2 December 2007

NEW YORK (AP)--Flight delays at New York airports are getting worse every year at a rate much faster than other U.S. cities, polluting the air and eroding the city's ability to compete in the global marketplace, a city official said Sunday.

In a 36-page report, City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said the on-time performance of commercial aircraft at the three major regional airports was 13% below the national average - or nearly three times more than in 2003, he said.

"One of New York City's major competitive advantages is its outstanding air connections with the rest of the nation and the world. This advantage is now being degraded by the declining reliability of air travel into and out of New York," Thompson said in a statement.

Thompson said the Federal Aviation Administration needed to modernize an "antiquated" air traffic control system, train more controllers and stop overscheduling airline flights during peak hours.

He recommended temporary caps on flight numbers at John F. Kennedy and Newark-Liberty International Airports. Three of four of the nation's delayed flights come from Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia Airports.

He said his recommendations could ease delays and save airlines and passengers nearly $260 million a year at Kennedy Airport alone.

FAA spokesman Brian Turmail said the White House announced last September that New York airport delays would be given "special priority" to speed changes. The agency, he said, has taken several steps including a redesign of East Coast flight routes to ease congestion at peak hours.

"What we are looking for are more suggestions as to how the situation might be improved," Turmail said. "There have been some, but this is a little like relying on a handkerchief when a parachute is needed - it's not going to be enough."

[hkskyline]

Is this the one?


Too large and expensive, JFK airport stained glass coming down
20 February 2008

NEW YORK (AP) - It was called the longest window in the world when its red, sapphire and purple panels were unveiled to airport travelers in 1960. Artists called the window -- longer than a football field and more than 20 feet high -- one of the most important stained-glass works in the U.S.

But American Airlines quietly began dismantling the window's 900 panels last week at its old John F. Kennedy International Airport terminal, after years of debate and pleas by employees and artists to find a way to keep the abstract, multicolored piece intact.

Many museums asked to display the window -- over 300 feet long and 23 feet high -- said it was too large. And the airline said that removing it in one piece, moving it and storing it would cost many millions.

"It's not necessarily the outcome that everyone might have hoped for," airline spokesman Tim Smith said Wednesday. "But any solutions were extraordinarily expensive and no one would be able to do that."

Smith said that small pieces of the window would become floor displays at Kennedy Airport, at the airline's Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters, and at a Long Island museum. The rest is being given to an antique salvage company that is taking down the glass for free.

An artist who said he studied with the window's designer said the airline was too cheap to properly restore a priceless work of art.

"That was American Airlines' visual identity at Kennedy for 50 years. To just throw it in a trash heap is incredibly disrespectful," said Kenneth vonRoenn, an architect and glass artist in Louisville, Ky. "To intentionally destroy it because it was more cost effective ... it's regrettable."

Artist Robert Sowers created the modern glass facade for American's terminal when it opened in 1960 at Kennedy, then known as Idlewild Airport. It was believed to be the world's largest stained-glass window at the time, and the first to be featured so prominently in a U.S. building.

"I don't know that a building had ever been designed previous to that in which the entire facade was taken up with an enormous graphic statement like that," said Ed Carpenter, a stained glass artist in Portland, Ore. vonRoenn said the piece "singularly set the stage for contemporary stained glass in the United States."

The airline announced plans over a decade ago to build a new, larger terminal at Kennedy, and the $1.3 billion facility opened last summer. For years before that, discussions had circulated about options for the window. An earlier proposal, to scrap the glass and convert pieces of it into employee key chains, was instantly derided and fell through.

Eileen Clifford, a 29-year American flight attendant from West Islip, said the window was a beacon for her home base, and she created an organization to save it. She called dozens of conservation groups, asking museums like the Smithsonian to preserve it and display it.

"It's too big," she said they told her. She said the Cradle of Aviation museum in Garden City had agreed to take it, but a museum official said it might only be able to use a small part of the window.

"It represents history. It's a historic contribution to the art world," Clifford said.

Smith, the airline spokesman, said that no group came forward with an offer to display the window in its entirety. American Airlines also needs to work fast to take down the building the facade is attached to, and use the empty space to store ground equipment like snowplows and de-icing machines. The airline is spending around $50,000 a day in construction costs as long as the building still stands.

The company removing the glass panels, Olde Good Things, has taken down about 10 percent of the panels so far, and hopes to have the entire window dismantled in three weeks, Smith said. The airline will then select which pieces -- about 2 feet by 4 feet -- it would like to use for the three separate displays.

vonRoenn said that Olde Good Things doesn't specialize in removing stained glass, which came from Germany, and would likely damage the surviving pieces. And he said that small displays of the window panels "won't visually make any sense." Sowers, who died in 1990, wouldn't want it, he said.

"Just destroy it," vonRoenn said. "He would rather have not any part of it seen than to have it portioned off."

[Metsfan1520]

after american airlines demolishes terminal 8, will they they be extending the new terminal 9 to take its place???

[crawford]

^
Yes

[Don Omar]

An Airline Terminal for a Security-Wary Era


The security area at JetBlue’s new terminal at Kennedy International Airport will be 340 feet wide and will have 20 lanes.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: March 11, 2008
nytimes.com

From the moment that passengers first arrive at JetBlue Airways’ $750 million terminal at Kennedy International Airport in September, they will face an unmistakably post-9/11 world.

Most airline terminals have been jury-rigged since 2001 to accommodate all the extra security workers and equipment. But JetBlue’s new Terminal 5 is among the first in the United States designed from the ground up after the terrorist attacks.

The 340-foot-wide security checkpoint will dominate the departures hall the way ticket counters once did, occupying the focal point of the Y-shaped building.



There will be 20 security lanes. “They were sized with the idea that passengers have luggage, have children, have wheelchairs and have special needs,” said William R. DeCota, director of aviation at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs Kennedy.

After running the security gantlet, travelers will find a lot of benches where they can pull themselves back together.

There will be subtler touches, too: resilient rubber Tuflex floor (instead of cold, hard terrazzo) for the areas where one has to go shoeless.

“We want the security process to be thoroughly rigorous but minimally intrusive,” Mr. DeCota said. “The design of that terminal was intended to make sure that no one will have to worry that their wait time is going to be greater than 10 minutes.”

JetBlue handled 28 percent of Kennedy’s 47.7 million passengers last year. The airline expects that by the end of this year, 44,000 passengers will be passing through Terminal 5 each day. The airline operates 170 flights a day at Kennedy, but could operate 250 flights from the 26 gates at Terminal 5.

Despite its scale, Terminal 5 has been overshadowed by its connection to the landmark Trans World Airlines Flight Center, designed by Eero Saarinen, which stands at the same corner of the airport and is also known as Terminal 5. The Port Authority plans an interim renovation of the Saarinen building, which has been closed for seven years. JetBlue passengers will be able to pass through it on their way to the new Terminal 5.

It has been designed by the Gensler firm, working with DMJM Harris/Aecom, Arup and the authority’s master planner, William Nicholas Bodouva & Associates.

Given a more-or-less blank slate, they were able to design spaces to accommodate security technology, rather than cramming technology into existing spaces.

For instance, formidable-looking X-ray explosive detection machines are often found in the middle of departure lobbies. These add inconvenient steps to the inspection process.

The detection machines at Terminal 5, on the other hand, are out of sight and integrated into what is called an in-line baggage handling system. Bags move automatically from the ticket counter through several inspection points to the tugs that take them out to the aircraft, rather than being hand carried from one area to the next.

Pointing to the system on a floor plan, William D. Hooper Jr., a managing director of Gensler, said: “The heart of the terminal is in places like this. All that stuff that came up into the terminal after 9/11, some of it as big as a Volkswagen, is here.”

Airline executives and authority officials emphasized that the security measures at Terminal 5 were not better than those at other terminals, simply that they promised to be faster.


Arriving from AirTrain, travelers will have this second-story overview of the departures hall.


Scaffolding under the sky bridge to AirTrain frames an airliner on the field. JetBlue currently uses Terminal 6 and a makeshift boarding area. Terminal 5 is to open in September.