Taxiway A Kink In Expansion
From: Chicago Tribune
Author: Jon Hilkevitch
FAA Demands It, But City Short $200 Million
Chicago says it doesn't have more than $200 million it needs to build an aircraft taxiway that is key to its expansion plans for O'Hare International Airport, and the Federal Aviation Administration is warning that new runways will not open without the taxiway.
The FAA, which is three months from deciding whether to approve the expansion project, told city aviation officials last week that they must guarantee that the taxiway will be built by the time Runway 10 Center/28 Center has opened to ensure safe and efficient flight operations, according to documents the Tribune obtained.
The "LL" taxiway, known in airfield language as Lima Lima, is a critical element of Mayor Richard Daley's $6.6 billion airport expansion plan.
The goal is to cut O'Hare flight delays by 79 percent while increasing the airport's capacity to handle hundreds of thousands of additional flights each year. Without the taxiway, the FAA and O'Hare air-traffic controllers say, the airport could continue to have serious congestion well into the future. The reconfigured airfield also could be more prone to accidents, they say.
Under the airfield design the city submitted to the FAA almost two years ago, aircraft landing at O'Hare on two runways, 28 Left and 28 Center, would taxi to Lima Lima by intersecting Runway 28 Right at a safe distance behind planes taking off from 28 Right.
The arrangement allows departing flights on 28 Right to roll down the runway approximately 45 seconds apart, starting their takeoff about 3,000 feet west of the end of the 13,000-foot runway. The taxiing planes crossing 28 Right en route to Lima Lima and the passenger terminals would not be a factor because they would be east of the point where departing traffic is being launched into the sky.
But without Lima Lima, which disappeared from a city map distributed to the FAA this spring, there is no clear path to the terminals for arrivals. Pilots of inbound flights would have to cross the middle of 28 Right in front of takeoffs. That is called a "raw crossing" because of the potential for mishap.
Air-traffic controllers estimate that up to 600 additional aircraft each day would be forced to taxi across active runways in front of planes waiting to take off. That would require the departing aircraft to hold until the intersecting traffic has crossed.
"We don't want to get into the situation of bringing planes across the middle of an active runway. That would require adding space between departing flights and slowing down everything to ensure safety," FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said.
Runway incursions--two aircraft being in the same space at the same time--are the No. 1 cause of commercial accidents. Most incursions are the result of pilot or controller errors, but airfield design has been a factor in some fatal collisions.
The FAA encourages airfield layouts that route taxiing planes around runways whenever possible because such designs are less susceptible to runway incursions.
An expensive plan
The city has told airlines that the Lima Lima taxiway would cost as much as a quarter-billion dollars to build, in part because a nearby jet fuel-storage facility must be moved. American Airlines and United Airlines, the largest carriers at O'Hare, have refused to help cover the costs.
The shortfall in paying for the taxiway comes amid reports from insiders of growing dissension in the city's O'Hare expansion office. The city fired its nationally renowned consultant and several assistants who were hired to manage the expansion program after they issued an ominous progress report last year.
The report, obtained by the Tribune, said that the $2.9 billion projected cost of the first phase of O'Hare expansion already had increased by $229.5 million and that runway completions would be up to four years behind schedule.
Rosemarie Andolino, who is directing the airport expansion for the city, declined to provide updated numbers. She said only that the first phase of the project, which includes the runway and taxiway in question, is running "plus or minus $15 million."
Andolino said the $229.5 million cited in increased costs was unrelated to the more than $200 million that could be saved by eliminating or delaying construction of Lima Lima.
However, Lima Lima had disappeared suddenly from a revised draft of an airfield layout map that city aviation officials presented to the FAA in April. City officials explained that they planned to eliminate or defer the 3,000-foot taxiway to cut costs, according to several participants at a meeting of a FAA-city airfield design-analysis group called Phasing Operations Evaluation Team.
"It is as if the great Harry Houdini is working for the Chicago Department of Aviation," said Craig Burzych, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at O'Hare. "Mayor Daley's expansion plans appeared out of nowhere without anyone being consulted, Meigs Field vanished from the lakefront and now we have a disappearing taxiway."
Andolino told the FAA in a May 17 letter that the city intends to build Lima Lima, but added that the taxiway "is not presently covered by such an airline funding approval."
The taxiway is not funded in agreements among the city, American and United. The FAA has instructed the city to put the taxiway back into the plans for the first phase of airfield reconstruction.
"It is important to assure that no misunderstanding exists on our part concerning precisely when the city intends to construct this taxiway and have it available for use," Barry Cooper, who is overseeing the FAA's review of the O'Hare project, said in a June 16 letter to Andolino.
Airlines may not chip in
American and United had reached agreements with the city to help pay for part of the projected $2.9 billion cost of the first phase of O'Hare expansion, but the cash-strapped carriers have so far declined to pay for the taxiway.
"We signed on for new runways at O'Hare, and we still intend to pay for them. ... The taxiway is an issue between the city and the FAA, not American Airlines," American spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said.
United spokesman Jeff Green said "more discussion and analysis would be needed" before the bankrupt airline could decide whether to pay for the taxiway.
Officials at American and United have not yet signed on to the $3.7 billion second phase of O'Hare expansion. The city estimates the cost of the total project at about $15 billion.
Suburban critics of O'Hare expansion say the real cost of the city's plan exceeds $30 billion. They say the project is economically unfeasible and plagued by operational problems.
Despite the obstacles, Andolino said the project is moving smoothly toward an expected FAA approval in September.
"We will continue to have a dialogue with the carriers to secure funding for Lima Lima," Andolino said, adding that the city expects to open the taxiway in 2009, when Runway 10 Center/28 Center are inaugurated.
The setback over the taxiway also has stirred concerns at the FAA over whether the city can build the entire project. The anticipated gains from expanding O'Hare hinge on completion of the six east-west runways and two diagonal runways, as well as other airfield improvements, envisioned in the plan.
Last fall, the city quietly dismissed George Vittas, the airport development expert hired to oversee O'Hare expansion.
City officials have declined to discuss why Vittas left, and Vittas hasn't returned phone calls from reporters.
