FedEx says landing rules cut its efficiency
New FAA landing rules imposed at Memphis International Airport last week reduce FedEx Express' efficiency by more than 20 percent some days, quickly affecting its ability to deliver on its famous promise, the company says.
FedEx, surprised that the decision happened without warning, wrote a letter to Federal Aviation Administration administrator Marion Blakely last week, taking the agency to task for proceeding "without a formal review" and saying the impact "to our 'absolutely, positively overnight' service cannot be understated."
The letter, signed by James Parker, senior vice president of air operations, says FedEx's daytime landing efficiency will drop from 88 landings an hour to 68 landings when winds are out of the south.
The FAA starts its formal review at the airport today with agency officials from Washington, Atlanta and the Memphis air traffic control tower.
"The team will be gathering input from the users and looking at technical data," said Kathleen Bergen, FAA spokeswoman.
The goal, she said, is to see if the suspended procedure can be "mitigated" in a way that doesn't affect safety "and has little impact on capacity."
FedEx, which says it has never recorded a safety incident in the configuration, questions why the FAA would halt a long-used practice that the agency itself said was safe in 1999.
"While safety is all our No. 1 concern, obviously a significant reduction in capacity – without first conducting a formal review process – is a major concern," Parker wrote.
Since last week, controllers have been instructed to stagger landings on the runways when the wind is out of the south. The FAA said winds call for the landing configuration here 17 percent of the time.
National Weather Service records over 40 years show the wind blows out of the south in Memphis more than 42 percent of the year. In April, May, June and July, it is closer to 50 percent.
For decades, it was standard in Memphis to allow planes with intersecting flight patterns simultaneous access to north-south runways and an east-west runway on the north side of the airfield.
Planes with tail heights not exceeding 35 feet landed on Runway 27, which runs east-west across the north side of the airfield.
Large planes landed to the south on Runway 18, which includes the two-mile World Runway the airport finished in 2000.
In mid-April, the FAA suspended the practice, saying it did not conform to agency standards for intersecting runways.
Arnold Perl, chairman of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, says any change that reduces airport capacity has far-reaching implications for the region's economic development.
"We are not going to reduce capacity to the detriment of this community," he said, calling for "imaginative and creative solutions" to preserve the city's potential as a global aviation center.
Although controllers and pilots have complained for years about the procedure, it came formally to the FAA's attention Feb. 18 when a Northwest DC-9 and a Mesaba Airlines turboprop were forced to quickly change flight patterns after the turboprop aborted a landing and was preparing to circle back to try again.
"I have not seen any evidence that supports FedEx's position that they are going to have a 20 percent loss in capacity," said Larry Newman, head of Air Line Pilots Association Air Traffic Services division.
"It is extremely hard to believe. FedEx has four runways they can use. It's not like they lost a runway. It's a minor inconvenience that should have very little impact on landing rates."
A possible outcome is that controllers will be trained to use equipment the FAA already owns that shows the point where two approaching planes would converge, allowing controllers to speed one plane up or slow another down.
FedEx asks that the FAA "immediately produce a final recommendation" and that any recommended actions are "immediately given the highest priority."
