I gotta jump in here. I worked that JBU flight out of JFK while working JFK depature control today. I noticed ORD on the flight strip, and figured it was the inagural flight, but didnt say anthing because of other priorities at the time. Congrats to JBU.
Anyway, I'm a controller at NY TRACON in the JFK sector, and I must say, that our volume is going up and and up and up. First it was JBU A320's, then lots of RJ's, then E190's from JBU, then a host of new Intl carriers, then the rise and fall of Song, now the Dash 8s. I heard that we were holding at CAMRN and LENDY (for those of you who know the airspace) at 8am the last few mornings due to volume. I have been working in the sector for 7+ years and have NEVER seen us holding at 8am, unless we were on ILS 13L or the weather was really really crappy. We held those days for VOLUME, on a clear and a million day nonetheless. For those of you who fly into JFK a lot, you might expect holding around 3pm or 6-8pm, but never on a day shift! I can also remember working midnight shifts and early day shifts (530-130p), and working all the redeye's over LENDY between 4-7am, then it was dead until noon when the ROBER traffic showed up. These days, at 7am, we are pumping traffic. Throw in a wrench such a any kind of wind or bad weather, or JFK tower telling us to stay off the overflow runway (22R, 4L, and 31L), and we are at capacity quick.
Just some thoughts from a controller as to the delays I think JFK is going to start to see in the near future due to sheer volume. Remember people, you throw a few heavys into the mix at JFK, and the finals start getting real stretched out...
