New Yorkers by next summer could be paying higher airfares and have access to fewer flights, as the Federal Aviation Administration says it is eyeing congestion pricing and a cap on flights arriving and departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport in an effort to reduce crippling airline delays.

Responding to a summer marked by the worst flight delays since the FAA started keeping records in 1995, President Bush said yesterday there is “a lot of anger amongst our citizens” about unreliable flight schedules.

Mr. Bush has asked his secretary of transportation, Mary Peters, to convene a task force of airline executives and officials from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to make recommendations on how to reduce air traffic delays at JFK and throughout the New York region. The group is to issue recommendations by the end of 2007.

Airlines could be charged steeper fees to land their planes during peak hours, which could work as an incentive to steer more flights into off-peak slots, Ms. Peters said. Airlines would be expected to pass on the extra costs to customers.

“Consumers are paying today in their time,” Ms. Peters said at a news conference yesterday in Washington, D.C. “We’ve heard stories of people who missed weddings, funerals, and important business trips. People are paying today.” Ms. Peters said the administration’s focus was on New York because delays in the city have a “rippling effect” throughout the country.

Officials with the Port Authority and airline executives yesterday said they are strongly opposed to the Bush administration’s plan to reduce the number of flights into and out of the city’s congested airports, citing a negative impact on New York’s economy and the fragile airline industry.

“The solution shouldn’t be an outdated approach of just limiting capacity when passenger demand continues to grow,” a spokesman for the Port Authority, Pasquale DiFulco, said. “The administration needs to undertake a 21st century solution, meaning new and better technology to expand capacity.”

Last year, JFK, La Guardia, and Newark Liberty airports together handled 104 million passengers — and that was already above peak capacity. The Port Authority, which operates the region’s airports, is projecting that 150 million passengers a year will pass through its airports by 2025.

Airline executives yesterday spoke at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s aviation subcommittee about how this form of congestion pricing would harm consumers, raise airfares, and cut economic growth in the metropolitan region, according to wire reports.

Mayor Bloomberg, who has been pushing for the implementation of congestion pricing for drivers coming in and out of parts of Manhattan, said he would support looking at a similar scheme for the region’s airspace. “We have to do something,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday at an event in Long Island City. “This city desperately needs the ability for people to fly in and fly out.” He said New York City was operating at a disadvantage in terms of attracting businesses and tourists against other cities with better airports and fewer delays.

New York’s business community, which favors fielding as many flights as possible in order to boost the city’s economic activity, said a good solution to airspace gridlock would be building a rail link to Stewart Airport, a former Air Force base located near Newburgh, N.Y., which the Port Authority purchased in January for $78.5 million.

Only 72% of flights arrived on time this year at JFK, La Guardia, and Newark — the worst performance since the FAA began keeping track of schedules in 1995, according to government reports.

Ms. Peters said yesterday that the administration was also looking at how to address the symptoms of flight delays. Passengers bumped involuntarily from their flights now receive between $200 and $400 as compensation for the hassle, but could be paid up to $800.

A senior transportation fellow at the Regional Plan Association, Jeffrey Zupan, said the Bush administration was not going far enough in the options it was considering to help reduce airport congestion.

“What also has to be on the table is the role of Stewart Airport, as well as other kinds of regulations on planes of a certain size that shouldn’t be allowed to take off and land during a peak period, or curtailing planes that are going places with good rail service,” Mr. Zupan said.

A redesign of the region’s airspace, which the FAA announced earlier this month, could also increase capacity by about 30% and reduce delays by 20%, officials said. Ms. Peters also called on Congress yesterday to act on a proposal to invest in a satellite-based air traffic control system that would expand airspace capacity over the next 20 years.