One in four domestic flights in the US arrives late, US aviation on-time data shows. Aviation industry representatives say there is little hope the performance will improve soon. Anything and everything has been identified as responsible for the situation, from the effects of bad weather to a steady increase in the number of planes in already overcrowded skies, especially over metropolitan New York and major hub airports.

Airlines and private-plane owners are lobbying the US Congress to for higher allocations; to spend billions of dollars more on air traffic control upgrades. But no one wants to bear their share, and there's a great deal of squabbling over how these costs will be split. Not surprisingly, the issue is in gridlock. "We have been saying for some time that it's going to get worse before it gets better," says David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the airline trade association.

Soaring aviation sector
One obvious contributor to the increase in delays is that in the first half of 2007, major US airlines operated a record 3.7 million flights, 31 per cent more than in 2000. Industry representatives say that airport expansion and air traffic control technology improvements just haven't kept pace. Result - the worst airborne traffic jam in US history.

At Boston's Logan International Airport, for example, one in three flights landed late in 2007, making it worse than the national average. Logan ranks a poor 25th out of the 32 biggest US airports for arrivals. Departures aren't not much better - over 25 per cent of flights are leaving more than 15 minutes late. And this is despite Logan having six runways!

According to bureau standards, a long-haul flight is on schedule if it arrives or departs within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. Nationwide, both arrivals and departures are worse than they were in 2006. Some delays - especially those caused by thunderstorms or snowstorms - are unavoidable. And, a weather-induced delay at the airport of departure can dent the record of the airport of arrival.

Consumer complaints to the Transportation Department have also soared. June saw 43 per cent more complaints than a year earlier. With delays come baggage snafus. Reports of lost, damaged, stolen, or delayed luggage jumped to 7.9 bags for every 1,000 passengers in June, up 25 per cent from 6.3 bags a year earlier.

Worst of the worst
US Airways had the worst on-time record of all airlines this year, with just over 60 per cent of flights arriving on time. The airline relies heavily on hubs at Charlotte, North Carolina, and Philadelphia that rank among the worst for delays.

JetBlue Airways, which uses the congested John F Kennedy International Airport in New York as a hub, was crippled for a week by a February storm to rank as the second-worst carrier for delays, with only 66 per cent of flights on time. American Airlines, American Eagle, Northwest Airlines, and United were next in the worst on-time rankings.

Southwest Airlines, which flies mainly out of less-congested secondary airports and avoids major hubs, was best for on-time arrivals at over 80 per cent. It was followed by Delta Air Lines and AirTran Airways, both at around 78 per cent.

Is surcharge a solution?
The 'solution' that airlines have come up with is congestion surcharges, familiar to most Indian flyers. The problem is, it raises costs but doesn't solve the problems. Record airline load factors and the growing number of flights are a result of airline deregulation, which has produced a variety of airline services and vigorous price competition.

Unfortunately, adding $50 to a passenger ticket through a congestion surcharge to pay for the fuel the airplane burns while circling an airport, or reducing services to airports with less traffic, which airlines say is the only solution to market demands, is the wrong approach, feels Air Transport Association president and CEO James C May.

There's a better way?
In a first-person piece in USA Today, May proposes a four-point formula that he feels can reduce delays significantly. Improve air traffic control (ATC) productivity, he says, also advocating an acceleration of the airspace redesign project for the New York-Philadelphia region.

May also advocates giving commercial flights - that fund more than 90 per cent of ATC service costs - a higher priority than private planes, and quickly inducting new technologies like the Area Navigation and Required Navigational Performance. These measures, he feels, will improve things in the short-to-medium term. In the long run, he says, there is no alternative to making the ATC system satellite-based. The FAA target date of 2015 can be brought forward to 2010, he says.