Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
No, New York is the busiest airspace in the world, but most of the traffic is pretty evenly split between the three major airports.
|
In terms of actual airspace, the SoCal region is busier than NYC. The FAA divides the area around major metro areas with multiple airports into regions called Terminal Radar Approach Control Facilities, or TRACONs. The Southern California TRACON, which covers the LA basin, the San Fernando Valley, the Inland Empire all the way to Palm Springs, and San Diego is the hosts more flights everyday than any other comparable facility in the nation. The NYC TRACON, which covers most of the Tri-State area, has less traffic while also covering a slightly larger area. The only permanent divisions of airspace within TRACONs are individual airports, meaning the TRACON is the most granular option available to count traffic in a particular volume of space.
The NYC region does have more airline flights, but this is more than outweighed by the LA region's larger amount of military, cargo, flight training, and recreational flights. NTC TRACON controllers will sometimes describe the airspace as being the "most complex" in the world because the approach and departure patterns from JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and Teterboro interfere with each other, requiring intense coordination for virtually every flight as the regions wind and weather shifts. Saying that around a SoCal TRACON controller is a fast way to start an argument though, because while their flight routes are more stable they have to deal with more flights, more airports, large amount of restricted restricted military airspace, and mountainous terrain while handling everything from 70mph props on training flights to high speed fighter aircraft in a smaller overall area.
That said, the SoCal region's airports leave a lot to be desired from the passenger perspective. LAX has all the international flights, and it's crowded, unpleasant, and inconvenient to get to unless you live on the west side. Even before the pandemic San Diego International's international flights were a bit of a joke, meaning you need to drive 3+ hours to LAX. For domestic flight everyone prefers their local airport, but often it will require a transfer unless you're going to one of the major hubs. So SoCal does aviation in general extremely well, but air travel not so well.
Prev
Linear Mode
