Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Air traffic controller - Newark airport's boss has her eye on the issues affecting her charge

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 18:27:20 -0400

Air traffic controller - Newark airport's boss has her eye on the issues
affecting her charge

Tuesday, April 13, 2004
BY JUDY DEHAVEN

Star-Ledger Staff

Susan Baer isn't partial to baseball hats, although she has more than
she can count.
Sometime during the past 28 years she has worked for the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey, Baer started collecting hats and hanging
them on her office wall.

The hats tell the story of her career with the bistate agency. Baer, who
lives in Upper Montclair, started out as the Port Authority's first
female analyst. She went on to become its first female head of the
Lincoln Tunnel, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and LaGuardia Airport.
Since 1998, she has been general manager of Newark Liberty International
Airport, used by more than 29 million travelers each year.

For each stop along the way, there is a hat. And then some. There are
dozens now.
"I don't really much wear them -- it's not my thing," said Baer. Hanging
them up "was a mistake, because then people started giving me more."

Baer, 52, who also oversees Teterboro Airport for the Port Authority,
talked to The Star-Ledger about a variety of issues facing airports and
travelers, from the status of a massive redevelopment project at Newark
to airport security. She spoke from her spacious second- floor office at
the Port Authority's administration building in the North Area of Newark
airport.

What is it you do, exactly?

The airport manager is like the mayor of a town. There are 25,000 people
who work at Newark airport, so not so small a town.

We have our own police department. We have our own fire department. We
have our own sanitation department. We run the buses. We have the
customer service reps. We do the taxi dispatching.  We operate the
parking lot.

Then we also have a lot of tenants, and then have some overall
responsibility for the airport.
What is the status of the mas sive redevelopment of Newark airport that
began in 1999?

The $3.8 billion program transformed whole aspects of the airport.
There's a whole new roadway system in place ... two new parking garages,
lots of work on the other parking lots, and this building (the Port
Authority Administration Building), lots of aeronautical work and then
Continental's work on Terminal C. Also cargo work.

We're now in a sort of maintenance mode, but we're in a mode where we're
doing some very critical infrastructure repairs -- runway overlays,
taxiways, things like electrical switchhouses -- that kind of work.

There's one more roadway, one pretty substantial roadway package at the
south end of the airport that still has to be completed.
There's also a major runway overlay project that's already started.
It'll be the hot topic of September because September is actually when
we actually shut the runway for a period. But the work actually began
the weekend before last with weekend closures.

Once the redevelopment project is finished next year, what comes next?
We're gearing up for another round of looking at terminals and
expansions and what else we need to do. The planning number for Newark
airport is 45 million passengers.

We did the roadway work to get you there. We still need to do work on
the terminal side.
Newark was once the busiest airport in the region, but lost that status
to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Traffic is up but still off
its peak. Why?

Most airports are still off their peak. Part of this is that air travel
is still down globally.
The economy has not been robust. ... You have to remember that 2001,
absent 9/11, our traffic would have been down for the whole year, not a
lot but a little, because the economy was already weak.
And Kennedy got a boost from JetBlue?

JetBlue is doing extremely well. ... And that's completely the reason
why Kennedy is up.
The Port Authority runs four airports, and we don't compete. In the old
days, when we had far more traffic than Kennedy, I would say to
carriers, 'Have you considered Kennedy?' Because Kennedy had capacity.
It was hard sometimes depending on when a carrier wanted to come in ...
It was hard for me to fit them in.

Newark ranked dead last in on-time arrivals last year, and at the bottom
of the heap for on-time departures. Why? And what are you doing to
address that?

That is something that we (have no) control over. (Runway) construction
for three weeks has something to do with it, but that's three weeks out
of the whole year.

It has to do with airline's scheduling decisions. It has to do with
being in the most crowded air space in the world. And that's really the
biggest reason.

It has to do with capacity constraints on the ground and in the air. It
has to do with weather. We've done some things that for a while were
improving it. ... Extending the runway has helped. Some taxiway
improvements have helped because they have allowed us more flexibility.

This is a very, very crowded airport. It sits on 1,800 acres. We do an
enormous amount of traffic on these 1,800 acres and two-and- a-half
runways. ... Dallas has 20,000 acres, we have 1,800. ... You can't build
more runways.
Another thing is we have far more regional jets. ... Regional jets fly
in the same air space -- height -- as regular jets. They're using up the
space. ... They're also slower. And so in the departure process, you
can't push as many out in an hour if you're interspersing a lot of
regional jets because you have to leave a bigger separation between
them.

Newark has failed for the second straight year to meet a deadline for
electronically screening all checked baggage for explosives, and there
aren't enough screeners to man the airport's bomb detection machines.
Why is this and what are you doing to address it?

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) failed to meet the
deadline. I have absolutely no responsibility for screening baggage.
However, I have worked very closely with the TSA to provide them with
whatever they have requested from us.
I think the TSA has had a very tough time and I think they have done an
admirable job in meeting that challenge. They've done an awful lot very
fast.

Is it perfect? You're a consumer. You use it. You make that judgment.
But I think it's a very dedicated work force. But the time challenge has
been extraordinary.

Will Teterboro ever get commercial flights?

It is the Port Authority's intention to keep Teterboro at exactly the
same content.
We have fought hard to keep the 100,000-pound (per aircraft) rule, which
we've had at that airport for many, many years. We think it makes sense.
What we are doing at Teterboro is, we're improving infrastructure there.
We're doing some basic improvements. We are not doing anything there to
expand the capacity or to bring in heavier jets.

http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-6/1081839222108210.xml

--
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com.  Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

-- 
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address 
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEXTEL-1/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     [email-masked]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/