New US airport runways welcomed

The Airports Council International (ACI) North America has welcomed the opening of three new airport runways in the country and praised government efforts to boost aviation capacity.

New runways were opened on November 20th at the major US hubs of Seattle Tacoma, Washington Dulles and Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

Greg Principato, president of the ACI North America, said these runways will benefit passengers but stressed there is more that can be done to improve capacity in the US.

"The new runways will help passengers by increasing capacity and decreasing congestion and delays at those airports," he said.

"But we also need to continue our investment in airport infrastructure. These projects each took years to become a reality and airports need to gather the resources now in order to meet the predicted demand for travel in the future."

Earlier this week, US president George Bush announced that military airspace will be opened up in some regions of the country to reduce congestion over the forthcoming holiday period.

According to figures cited by Mr Principato, US airport traffic is set to rise to some 1bn passengers per year by 2016.

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