The NY Times did a nice piece on the closing of runway 13-R / 31-L at JFK this spring for refurbishing.

Here's the link: Runway Closing at Kennedy Airport Means Fewer Flights and Possible Delays

In a nutshell, Port Authority is rebuilding the runway and nearby taxiways as part of a long-term renovation project. It will increase the life of the runway by adding new pavement, it will ease operations by widening the runway, and it will streamline taxiways to allow for faster and more efficient taxiing. All in all, a very good thing for JFK. But at what cost? 

The shutdown will start in March and continue into June. Let's hope for everyone's sake it finishes on-time or early. JFK's airlines have been asked to curtail summer schedule growth for about a month in June to ease the burden. I'm sure that will help, but will it be enough?

Runway capacity is the root cause of flight delays. JFK already ranks among the worst airports in the country, and reducing capacity is only going to make those results worse. The good news is that JFK has 4 runways (2 of the 31/13 variety, and 2 of the 4/22 variety) and doesn't use all of them at once. So unless the winds are howling from the northwest or southeast, it shouldn't be that big a problem. But during certain weather events, or just during peak periods when operations will be irregular, delays will occur. And expect those delays to spread around the country. The good news is that JFK's delays have far less impact on the rest of the nation than, say, LaGuardia since a good chunk of its flights during peak periods are international. But that will be little solace this spring.

The silver lining is that if there was ever a time to do it, it's now while air traffic is still in a recession lull. Imagine this in 2005 or 2006 and it would be far worse. It's too bad they couldn't do it Sep-Nov, that would be an even better time due to low traffic and decent weather, although I'm sure it wouldn't leave enough time and of course if it ran over (which these things tend to do), it would bump up against the holidays and wouldn't that be a disaster!

I'll do some more analysis on this issue in the coming months to try and assess impact and provide some more perspective on how big an issue this is really going to be.

Evan