It does not quantify delays, or identify the sources. It gives us no data to determine how much of the problem could be solved with more runways in the bay, or at what cost. With three major airports and numerous small ones within a 50-mile radius, the Bay Area already challenges air traffic controllers to manage an intricate weave of arriving and departing flights. But the nonplan does not establish whether our skies can safely accommodate more flights, nor does it insist that the Federal Aviation Administration do so before local airports expand. Our three major airports operate as independent, competing businesses, with no intentional collaboration on service.
Airlines dictate schedules.
Traveling between the airports is slow and difficult. A regional joint airports authority could integrate all three airports' operations, link them with fast ferries or trains and promote balanced service and capacity. Backed by the region's political muscle, such a body could win federal funding to accelerate technology that reduces delays from local rain and fog. But the nonplan does not examine the potential benefits to the entire region of managing three geographically close airports as one entity. Filling the bay for runways could have devastating effects on fish and wildlife, water quality and the cleansing power of the tides, according to a panel of bay scientists convened by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last fall.