PLAN TO CUT DELAYS ADVANCES AT SEVEN AIRPORTS
The Department of Transportation
(DOT) said it would go ahead at seven airports with a
controversial plan to reduce airline delays by enabling
competing companies to coordinate their schedules.
    Under the plan, the DOT will grant the airlines immunity
from the antitrust laws so they can redistribute their flight
times over the day and avoid the clustering of flights that
typically occurs at the most desirable travel times.
    Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole said she had
decided to grant unconditional immunity to the carriers serving
Atlanta's Hartsfield and Chicago's O'Hare airports.
    At five other airports--Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston, Denver,
Newark and Philadelphia--Dole said she would grant conditional
immunity to enable further government study.
    Under this part of the plan, the carriers serving these
five airports have been asked to give DOT their summer 1987
schedules by the end of the week.
    The agency will then review the schedules and decide by
Monday whether they threaten to cause delays.
    If so, those airports would be added to the list of those
granted wider immunity to enable scheduling talks.
    Dole said she was confident no anticompetitive effects
would result from the talks, which she said would be monitored
by U.S. officials and would be open to the public.
    Flight delays at the nation's 22 busiest airports soared in
1986 to 367,000 from 295,000 in 1985. The government believes
most delays are caused by weather.
    The DOT first proposed the immunity plan in late January
and said it might be granted for a total of 13 airports.
    Dropped from the final plan were the Minneapolis-St. Paul,
New York-LaGuardia, New York-J.F. Kennedy, San Francisco, St.
Louis and Washington-Dulles airports.
 Reuter
