Flights at O'Hare May Be Limited

U.S. May Limit Flights at O'Hare, Official Says WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. aviation regulators threatened on Wednesday to cap commercial flights into and out of Chicago's O'Hare airport to reduce unprecedented delays that are causing congestion throughout the country's aviation system. The administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites), Marion Blakey, said the agency would take the unusual step unilaterally if airlines could not agree to cut their schedules further voluntarily. Blakey's remarks came at a meeting with representatives of U.S. airlines, including AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines to discuss schedule cuts at O'Hare. Chicago is the nation's prime connecting hub and a major center for international travel. Delays at the airport, many of which are caused by bad weather, ripple through the aviation system and cause backups at other airports. With airline traffic returning to pre-Sept. 11, 2001 levels, operations at O'Hare are running about 170 flights a day above last year, when delays were not a problem. There were nearly 59,000 delays at O'Hare this year through June. A flight is considered delayed when it is at least 15 minutes late. Two previous schedule cuts in March and June totaling more than 7 percent of peak-hour flights by United and American, which together control more than 80 percent of traffic at O'Hare, have not worked as intended. Regulators initially had sought more from No. 1 American and No. 2 United than they got and are unhappy with other airlines that eroded the impact of the cuts by filling the openings with their own flights. These include Continental Airlines Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and fledgling Independence Air, a unit of FLYi Inc. and a former United regional affiliate that began flying on its own this summer out of Washington's Dulles airport. FLYi is the new name, effective Aug. 4, for Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings Inc.>