Originally Posted by
SenecaDriver
Take it easy! I guess I framed the original question wrong. I know there are quite a few Warning areas off the east coast, but they are not restricted. You can , and I have quite often flown through them on an airway with a clearance (IFR), flying to and from Fla and the N.E. Check out Flightaware and folow the airline or frac. of your choice. They traverse this airspace all the time.
No offense meant.
Yes, plenty of folks fly through the confines of those Warning Areas IFR when they're cold, but ATC will not clear any non-participants there when they're in use. My point was that I can't honestly imagine why anyone would want to take a short cut through a hot Warning Area or MOA under VFR. There are guys in there going supersonic, practicing BFM/ACM, and occasionally firing all sorts of air-to-surface, air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface missiles.
We trailed 5 miles of wire in Whiskey Areas. I always wondered what we'd find if anyone ever sat down and correlated the dates and times we lost wires mysteriously to unexplained helicopter crashes...
Anyway, to address your question, I would speculate that it would help a little, as it would free up additional arrival and departure corridors, especially at LGA/JFK/EWR. The backlog, as I understand it, is more of an airborne separation and sequencing issue than one of runway utilization. Most of the traveling public (and our esteemed lawmakers) probably assume the opposite, since that's where they see throngs of airplanes lined up. What they don't see are the speed restrictions and flow control beginning at the Canadian border or airliners stacked like pancakes over FAK. As others have mentioned, the real solution is modernization of the ATC system and adequate controller staffing, which will only result when both are properly funded.
(Take, for example, ATL, where the standard call is "Airliner 1, cleared for takeoff. Airliner 2 position and hold," followed shortly thereafter by "Airliners 3, 4, 5, 6, without delay, cross." Rinse, lather, repeat. Contrast this to JFK, where it's "Hold short, awaiting IFR release.")
Another issue that I doubt if anyone crying for this in Washington has even considered is whether most of the aircraft that could potentially take advantage of this airspace are even equipped for overwater ops. I think someone once told me that JetBlue is occasionally able to cut the line at Kennedy because they carry the rafts required to depart to the east and avoid the congestion, if that route is available. I bet most of the RJ's at JFK don't.