Operational consequences of alternative airport demand management policies - Case of LaGuardia Airport, New York

The current demand management policy at LaGuardia Airport (LGA) New York, must be changed in 2007 under the provision of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century of April 2000 (AIR-21). As a preliminary step for developing a new policy, this study considered how past policies, along with other factors, have affected operational performance at LGA. The interaction between LGA and the rest of the aviation system was also investigated by estimating simultaneous equations of average delay for LGA and the National Airspace System (NAS) by using two-stage least squares. The results demonstrate that the arrival delay impact of AIR-21 on LGA was in the form of Increased Ground Delay Program holding and that although delay increased markedly under AIR-21, there were also observable improvements in the ability of LGA to handle traffic. Furthermore, on the basis of the simultaneous equations analysis, it was found that 1 min of arrival delay at LGA causes about 2 min of delay elsewhere in the NAS, suggesting that demand management at LGA is a national rather than a local issue.