A federal task force made up of airline executives, government officials and aviation groups has been discussing how to decongest the New York airspace, which is the US's worst air-travel bottleneck. More planes jockey for space in the sky than the area's beleaguered air traffic control system can handle.

The question is, does one reduce the number of flights, or are there ways to safely get more planes into and out of the area's three major airports, on time? The panel has been discussing both approaches during a series of high-level meetings over the past three weeks.

US transportation secretary Mary Peters convened the group in late September and asked it to find suitable solutions for chronic delays at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and its sister airports, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty. President Bush has asked the task force to report back by December.

But she also gave it a clear warning. If it failed, airlines had better be prepared to face a federal order reducing the number of allowed flights. Not surprisingly, the meetings, led by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), have been closed to the public.

One of the most contentious proposals will be 'congestion pricing'; higher fees for planes operating at the airports during the aviation rush hours, which, in New York, coincide roughly with morning and evening commutes.

Its proponents say the extra cost of flying in prime time might lead airlines to shift some flights to less busy periods, and leave rush hour to the biggest jets with the most passengers. Travellers might opt for off-peak hours if tickets for those coveted early evening flights suddenly got more expensive.

But opponents point out that limits on the number of planes flying at peak commuting hours for business travellers could hurt the city's economy. The airlines say it will raise costs, discourage airlines from serving smaller cities, and make it harder for passengers to fly when they want.

The challenge is also that landing spots in New York are very highly coveted. A tax that can change airline behaviour in this respect would have to be extremely high.

Besides, many of New York's John F Kennedy airport's (JFK's) international flights cannot be shifted to another part of the day. They need to leave before a certain hour so that they don't arrive at their destinations in the middle of the night.

Some airline officials say a superior solution is to make better use of New York's congested airspace, which is inefficiently utilised at present. Jetliners travelling towards the congested east coast presently have to use a small number of old flight paths, some laid out in the days when pilots still navigated by signal fires.

These routes jam up quickly on most days, and delays can be severely compounded over the entire country if one or more of these 'air highways' is blocked by a thunderstorm. Air traffic controllers responsible complain that they are stretched to the limit, because the command centres are understaffed.

Interestingly, even though it is highly congested, JFK rarely operates at anywhere near its rated capacity. With all four runways in use, the airport should be able to handle as many as 100 aircraft movements per hour, according to its FAA rating. But on most days, it handles only about 68 per hour.

The situation is similar in Newark, which has a maximum capacity rating of 80 aircraft movements (takeoffs or landings) per hour. Usually, however, it performs only 65.

Delta Airlines suggests that some of these problems can be overcome by asking jetliners to fly less congested corridors, including ones that detour planes 100 to 120 km out of their way, just to get free of the congested New York-bound flight paths.

But overworked air traffic controllers are loath to have aircraft moving through their sectors on unfamiliar routes. This means that the airspace itself needs to be redesigned.

The FAA has already come up with a redesign for the airspace around New York and Philadelphia, which could cut delays by as much as 20 per cent. But the plan has been delayed time and again owing to opposition from US Congressmen who fear their communities might be disturbed by more plane traffic.

Members of the flight delay task force now say they have other ideas that might help. They have asked that a rarely used section of the skies off the east coast, now reserved for the military, be opened up to commercial carriers.

US Senator Charles Schumer has backed both these ideas. On Thursday 11 October, he chided the FAA for not implementing them sooner. He also said the FAA convene a meeting of airlines to talk about cutting down on instances when the carriers have collectively planned too many flights for the same airport at the same time.

The airlines have asked the FAA to appoint a 'czar' to oversee the independent control centres that coordinate traffic in the region; someone with sufficient authority to tackle delay problems decisively. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown has said that all of those ideas, and more, will be considered in the coming weeks.

The US Department of Transportation says that in August, only 59 per cent of arrivals and 63 per cent of departures at JFK were on time, according to. Newark had 62 per cent of arrivals and 66 per cent of departures on time, while LaGuardia saw just 58 per cent of its flights land on schedule.