Plans by British Airways to launch a new airline between Europe and New York have been thrown into disarray after American aviation authorities threatened to veto any increase of air traffic into the chronically congested John F. Kennedy airport.

The Times has learnt that the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is about to start talks with foreign airlines, including BA, to reduce congestion at JFK, the main New York airport.

It is thought that the feasibility of launching the new airline will be a key issue under discussion at the BA board meeting tomorrow, when company executives gather to discuss the group’s interim results published on Friday.

The FAA wants airlines to reduce voluntarily the number of take-offs and landings at JFK or to move flights to less hectic times.

The regulator has told all airlines that fly in and out of JFK that it plans to cap the number of flights at peak times, reducing the number of aircraft landing and taking off in the late-afternoon and evening rush hour by as much as 20 per cent.

BA is already planning to increase the number of services between Heathrow and JFK from 51 flights a week to 55 next year.

However, it is also planning to launch a new airline that will offer direct flights between Europe and the East Coast of the US next year to take advantage of the open-skies agreement that will take effect next Easter.

Although BA has yet to announce the routes for the new airline, one BA executive has said that JFK will be the destination airport, where it has its own terminal. BA is JFK’s biggest overseas airline.

A spokesman for BA said yesterday: “We have not specified the destination for the new airline, but New York is the obvious destination. There would be an impact on BA [if restrictions were enforced], and we watch developments with interest. We would like this issue to be resolved as soon as possible. We have tickets to sell.”

Transatlantic routes are the most lucrative in the world and BA derives about half its profits from them. One industry insider said: “The FAA is clamping down and BA could well be its first scalp.”

This month the FAA told all airlines that use JFK to submit their proposed flight schedules for next summer. Having studied the timetables, it said that it wanted to cap the number of flights at peak times.

It said that between 3pm and 7.59pm no more than 81 flights an hour would be permitted. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline industry body, on some days JFK is handling at least 100 flights an hour.

In an FAA document on congestion at JFK, the regulator said: “Under a preliminary review of the schedule submissions for sumer 2008, the FAA notes that there are proposed schedule increases by domestic carriers and foreign flag carriers.

“These proposed schedules will result in a significant increase in operations at JFK. While JFK has available capacity for additional flights during some periods of the day, certain hours are currently beyond capacity and would only get worse if the schedules were implemented as proposed . . . Carriers with new flights planned for peak hours should consider alternative schedules, especially for those planned in the late afternoon and evening hours.”

An FAA spokesman told The Times: “We will get some kind of result on this by mid-December. If carriers aren’t shaping up, we will impose restrictions. The concern is the level of traffic in and out of JFK. We do not want a repeat of this summer.”

A spokesman for IATA said: “We are very concerned that they [the FAA] will cap services in and out of JFK. Nothing is finalised but the threat is there.

“Because the US has failed to grow its infrastructure, it is trying to penalise airlines and passengers. But, quite clearly, the status quo is not working.”

BA's US ambitions:

Now: 51 flights a week between Heathrow and JFK
BA is biggest foreign airline operating at JFK

2008: 55: BA’s planned number of flights per week

Grounded by congestion at JFK?

50,000 average number of passengers using JFK daily

114% increase in average daily arrivals with delays greater than 1 hour

36 minutes average taxiing time from gate to runway

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