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FAA Acknowledges New Runway At Logan Would Not Increase Capacity, Would Reduce Delays

8/21/2000

FAA officials have acknowledged publicly that Massport's new proposed runway at Logan would reduce delays and not increase capacity. The statement was made by Paul Galis, FAA's deputy associate administrator of airports and appeared in the Boston Globe on Sunday, August 13, 2000. Galis's statements were part of a far-reaching analysis on the causes of the growing delays in our nations aviation system.

In comparing Logan's runway proposal to plans at other airports, Galis acknowledged that Massport's reason for building a new runway differs from airports across the country that are attempting to increase their capacity.

"Most of the plans [to add a runway] are designed to accommodate more traffic, in that respect Boston is sort of unique," Galis said. He went on to explain that Logan's runway would increase capacity by only 5,000 operations a year (bringing the airport back to normal capacity on northwest wind days) whereas other airports are building new runways in hopes of adding hundreds of thousands of operations per year.

"Massport has an obligation to its passengers to keep Logan operating at normal capacity during northwest wind conditions," said Massport Executive Director and CEO Virginia Buckingham. "We want to expand capacity at regional airports, not Logan. At Logan, we need to solve our delay problem."

In January, the FAA called for an independent panel to look at the proposed runway. The panel, comprised of three members appointed by Governor Cellucci and three members appointed by Mayor Menino, has been meeting on a monthly basis since March.