Congestion Pricing, Airline Edition
June 23, 2008 – 8:55 pm by BHThe FTC has issued comments on the FAA’s proposed rule change allowing congestion management at LaGuardia. From the comment (HT):
Currently, congestion at LaGuardia is controlled by limiting the number of slots, or rights to land or take-off, allowed during each hour of operation. The two alternative auction-based approaches proposed for allocating a limited number of these slots reflect the FAA’s desire for market forces to determine the most efficient uses for the limited capacity available at LaGuardia. At present, take-off and landing fees are time-invariant and based solely on the weight of the aircraft. Accordingly, these fees are unrelated to the demand for takeoffs and landings. We believe that the imposition of slots and slot auctions represent one promising approach to relieve congestion at the busiest airports and efficiently allocate scarce airport capacity, but that careful attention needs to be paid to the design and testing of candidate auction mechanisms before they are implemented. Furthermore, alternative policies such as congestion-based take-off and landing fees, which create a similar change in air carrier incentives, should also be considered.
