Starting today, flying out of JFK goes from bad to worse.
Millions of travelers can expect to wait longer — and pay more — to fly to and from JFK Airport after its main runway is shut down for extensive repairs that are expected to last at least four months.
The Queens air-traffic hub — already near the bottom of the barrel for on-time performance — is expected to face delays of what critics warn will be “multiple hours,” as planes are diverted to three smaller runways at the Queens facility.
And passengers will have to dig deeper to afford the higher ticket prices that the airlines will likely charge to make up for temporarily cutting about 10 percent of their flights into and out of JFK.
Adding insult to injury, the carriers are building in time to their schedules so that longer-than-normal trips won’t technically arrive “late.”
“I understand you have to keep the infrastructure up, but JFK’s already a mess, so no one might even notice,” said Roberto Giovanni, a 42-year-old fund manager from Manhattan, as he waited for his wife and daughter to arrive yesterday.
Grad student Zena Samuels of Queens, who was waiting for a friend’s flight, said she wasn’t surprised because “each year, the delays keep getting longer.”
“Hurry up and wait — that’s the story of JFK,” said Samuels, 28.
The shutdown will allow workers to tear up the 14,572-foot Bay Runway and replace its asphalt surface with more-durable concrete.
The runway — which normally handles a third of JFK’s traffic and half of all departures — will also be widened to accommodate new, extra-jumbo jets as part of the $376 million project.
Mike Sammartino of the FAA estimated that the average delay caused by the runway closure will last 29 minutes, with waits of up to 50 minutes during peak morning and evening hours.
That’s about what delays are on a typical, busy summer day at JFK, which ranked 28th out of 31 major American airports in terms of on-time performance last year, according to the federal Department of Transportation.
JetBlue, the airport’s biggest carrier, said it anticipates some “operational challenges” but insisted that its slimmed-down schedule would help avoid problems.
Still, Steve Abraham, head of the JFK air-traffic-controllers’ union, said travelers should brace for major headaches, adding that unpredictable weather would likely shut down some of the stand-in runways and play havoc with rosy predictions.
“If the airlines run a full schedule on days when we are in a single-runway configuration, the delays will be multiple hours,” he said.