The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded plans that could have resulted in major delays at MacArthur Airport.

According to officials, the FAA wanted to take equipment that helps schedule departures to make them quicker and safer from the busy airport and give it to an airport in Morristown, New Jersey. Without the equipment, controllers would have to get on the phone, call the control center in New York and wait for manual permission to have a plane take off.The Town of Islip along with Congressmen Steve Israel and Tim Bishop fought the FAA to keep the equipment from going to New Jersey. They feared without the equipment, MacArthur would be plagued with delays.

?Frankly the FAA didn't have a good reason for wanting to take it. This is a commercial airport, three million passengers a year, 100 flights a day and they wanted to put it in a small private airport that doesn't have a single commercial flight,? says Israel.

The FAA now plans to give the Morristown airport its own departure spacing equipment.