=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/news/archive/2002/01/04/n= ational1746EST0705.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, January 4, 2002 (AP) Air travel down over Christmas, but FAA expects passengers to return JONATHAN D. SALANT, Associated Press Writer (01-04) 14:46 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- Airlines carried 12 percent fewer passengers over the holiday period than they did a year ago. The airlines recorded 20.2 million revenue passenger miles between Dec. = 20 and Jan. 2, a drop of 12.4 percent from the 23 million recorded during the corresponding period a year ago, the Air Transport Association, the trade group for the major airlines, said Friday. A revenue passenger mile is one fare-paying passenger carried one mile and is the industry's unit of traffic measurement. While fewer people are flying since the terrorist attacks, Federal Aviation Administration officials say they expect air travel to return within two years to pre-Sept. 11 levels. As a result, they are moving ahead with previously announced plans to introduce new equipment, new runways and new air routes to reduce future flight delays. "Fundamentally, the plan remains pretty much the same," FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said Friday. "There is an assumption that demand will come back, and we need to be prepared." Garvey said she didn't know whether stronger security measures in place since the September hijackings and attacks would interfere with efforts to reduce flight delays. "That's going to be one of the great challenges," Garvey said. "How do y= ou coordinate, how do we really make sure we're finding the right balance. We need to keep the system moving and operating." Between Oct. 30 and Dec. 31, the FAA ordered 30 airport terminals or concourses evacuated because of security breaches, which resulted in 1,180 delayed flights, 464 canceled flights and 15 flights being diverted. In addition, passengers on 434 flights had to pass through airport checkpoints a second time because of improper screening. The FAA in June announced a $11.5 billion plan to reduce delays by using satellites, new air corridors, additional runways and closer spacing of airplanes to get more flights in the air quicker. With the airlines cutting flights since Sept. 11, there have been fewer delays. The Transportation Department reported that 84.7 percent of the flights of the 11 largest U.S. air carriers arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time in November, just slightly below the 84.8 percent on-time record recorded in October. In November 2000, 72.8 percent of flights arrived on time. On the Net: Air Transport Association: www.airlines.org Federal Aviation Administration: www.faa.gov =20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 AP