Jets Being Dumped on Western Nassau

[samyn on the green]

The federal government put a distance perimeter on LGA limiting flights to 1500 miles. This was designed to encourage flights at JFK which was considered in the boondocks and was underused back in the day. Up untill a few years ago JFK had very limited domestic service. The only JFK domestic flights were to Miami and the west coast cities. Jetblue opened up JFK to domestic markets and now there is significant domestic service from JFK. JFK is dominated by international traffic. JFK has always been the major international airport with all flag carriers having service at JFK. International range jetliners tend to be larger thus the larger equipment operating to JFK. Most cities will only see one flight per day rather than LGA which has smaller airplanes operating many times a day.

LGA in contrast has the distance limitation which only allows service as far as Denver. The shorter runways at LGA also limit aircraft performance. There are only limited customs facilities at LGA so the international traffic is rare. The reason for the smaller airplanes at LGA is threefold. Primo the airplanes are flying short domestic flights so they tend to be smaller. Second passengers prefer more frequent service so smaller airplanes leaving at more frequent intervals have replaced larger airplanes flying less frequently at LGA. Lastly the short runways at LGA and the weight limited piers at east river end of the runways limit performance.

Starting in the 1980's airlines started to schedule flight for passenger convenience. American has 1500 seats a day from LGA to ORD. Back in 1984 they had 5 DC-10 widebody airliners on that city pair. What happened there was that another airline would come in and compete with smaller equipment and hourly flights. Instead of 5 300 seat Dc-10's they would schedule 10 narrow body 150 seat 727's to offer hourly service LGA-ORD. This also spread to smaller cities with the introduction of the regional jet. Instead of one 150 seat MD-80 flight per day, airlines schedule 3 fifty seat regional jets per day to provide more convenient service with departures spread out throughout the day. What we have today is the same amount of seats but many more smaller airplanes flying clogging the airways.

Originally Posted by OhBeeHave

I was at LGA today, sitting in my car as I waited for a family member's plane to take off. The parking lot was adjacent to the end of the tarmac. I sat there for 80 minutes. Planes took off and passed over the lot approx every 2-3 mins; most of them were smaller than the jumbo jets. I've heard worse noise on Lakeland & 454 by ISP.

Is it possible that JFK is getting more jumbo jets and LGA less because of the fact that LGA arrivals and departures require a larger number of planes to fly over densely populated areas?

I am NOT stating that the approach to JFK is not densely populated, I am noting that there are more approaches over water (the Atlantic) before passing over land as opposed to LGA which borders a narrow point of the Sound.

Trying to learn..don't go tearing into me.

[LIMA]

Originally Posted by 56 Fighter

However, sometime over the last 3 years the planes started coming by more frequently and it became more noticeable. Now, I cannot talk on my cell phone in my backyard because when a plane comes by I have to wait 20 seconds because the noise is so loud.

I do not believe you and want to stand even on your block. 20 seconds...newer motors....impossible

20 years ago i might have kinda thought you were exaggerating even then....When i had to tell people on the other end of my phone every 3 minutes....hang out a second.... and it took all of 5 seconds for the planes noise to hold up the conversation.....

This is all within 1/2 mile of the runway and plane touching down and no more then 300' above my parents house....

Now in my parents same backyard, same 300' i don't have to even look up for a moment when talking...in 2009

In fact when Lufthansa almost landed on our ave in howard beach 3 years ago in bad weather that wasn't even as noisey and all 4 motors were probably at 100%, even the people on the plane looked scared, im sure the pilots lost a few pounds and left a few pounds in there pants...

We thought for sure lufthansa was landing on our ave on us, and if that happened 10 years ago or more the entire neighborhood would have been standing outside because of the added noise....
See living next to a AP you know when they screwed up coming in...

No one came out after the lufthansa incident...

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by samyn on the green

The federal government put a distance perimeter on LGA limiting flights to 1500 miles. This was designed to encourage flights at JFK which was considered in the boondocks and was underused back in the day. Up untill a few years ago JFK had very limited domestic service. The only JFK domestic flights were to Miami and the west coast cities. Jetblue opened up JFK to domestic markets and now there is significant domestic service from JFK. JFK is dominated by international traffic. JFK has always been the major international airport with all flag carriers having service at JFK. International range jetliners tend to be larger thus the larger equipment operating to JFK. Most cities will only see one flight per day rather than LGA which has smaller airplanes operating many times a day.

LGA in contrast has the distance limitation which only allows service as far as Denver. The shorter runways at LGA also limit aircraft performance. There are only limited customs facilities at LGA so the international traffic is rare. The reason for the smaller airplanes at LGA is threefold. Primo the airplanes are flying short domestic flights so they tend to be smaller. Second passengers prefer more frequent service so smaller airplanes leaving at more frequent intervals have replaced larger airplanes flying less frequently at LGA. Lastly the short runways at LGA and the weight limited piers at east river end of the runways limit performance.

Starting in the 1980's airlines started to schedule flight for passenger convenience. American has 1500 seats a day from LGA to ORD. Back in 1984 they had 5 DC-10 widebody airliners on that city pair. What happened there was that another airline would come in and compete with smaller equipment and hourly flights. Instead of 5 300 seat Dc-10's they would schedule 10 narrow body 150 seat 727's to offer hourly service LGA-ORD. This also spread to smaller cities with the introduction of the regional jet. Instead of one 150 seat MD-80 flight per day, airlines schedule 3 fifty seat regional jets per day to provide more convenient service with departures spread out throughout the day. What we have today is the same amount of seats but many more smaller airplanes flying clogging the airways.

Thank you for taking the time to explain the finer details. I had no idea!

[Johninwestbury]

Plus LGA doesn't have as good public transportation as JFK, they have one or two bus routes that go there that are overcrowded. I think since the Airtrain opened alot more carriers are choosing JFK. Even before than, you could get to JFK with the A train and a short shuttle bus ride.
There were plans to extend the N to LGA but the NIMBYs put a stop to that.