Newark Liberty International Airport has confronted with many disturbances in recent weeks. Technology disruptions, shortages of air traffic controllers and landing job construction at the busy hub have led to dozens of canceled and delayed flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration says it is trying to improve the situation, also with software and hardware upgrades. On Wednesday it met airlines managers to discuss how they can run things smoothly by reducing the number of flights at the airport at a certain hour.
In a senate hearing on aviation safety on Wednesday, Senator Ted Cruz, the Republican of Texas, said the agency that the agency had a “multi-year failure to keep pace with technology and personnel needs.”
What’s going on with staff?
Air traffic control facilities throughout the country do not have enough controllers – the professionals who lead aircraft to and from airports – for years as a result of the turnover of employees, tight budgets, long training times and other factors.
There are only 22 certified controllers to serve Newark, which is about a third shy of the personnel objective of 38, according to the FAA, the agency also has five supervisors and almost two dozen controllers and supervisors in training. Ten trainees can at least do some work without extra supervision, the agency said this week.
Tight staff sometimes disrupted the activities at Newark. For several hours on Monday, for example, Limited Staffing forced the FAA to prevent flights from leaving other airports on the way to Newark. Those delays were on average an hour and 40 minutes and lasted so long to almost seven hours. Part of the evening, as little as Three air traffic controllers worked when the temporary employment goal was 14.
The air traffic controllers for Newark were moved to Philadelphia last summer from an office in Long Island, where controllers still lead planes to other airports in New York. The hope was that by moving the Newark activities to a more affordable area, the agency may have an easier time to recruit controllers.
But 16 of the controllers who work on Newark flights are expected to return to Long Island in July 2026. Replacements will be drawn up and training lessons will be filled next summer, the FAA said Tuesday. Due to the complex nature of the work, it can take a year or more to train controllers in other facilities to handle traffic in Newark, one of the busiest airports in North America.
What’s going on with catwalk construction?
Since April 15, one of the three runways of Newark has been closed for construction. That has caused between one and four flight cancellations per hour, a peak during the busy afternoons and evenings, according to the FAA arrangements delays are also common. Construction is expected to continue until June 15 and will resume during the weekend from September until the end of the year.
At the same time, the Philadelphia Air Traffic Control Facility Twice had short, but with regard to radar loss That made it impossible for controllers to find the planes they accompanied. The first of those malfunctions rattled controllers, with some leave to recover from that stress. Both malfunctions were caused because a telecommunications line failed. There was a back line, but software for that line also failed, overwhelming the backup, officials said this week.
“I don’t believe that there was an increased significant danger to the flying public,” Franklin McINTOSH, the deputy Chief Operating Officer of the FAA, told Senators during a hearing on Wednesday.
What does the FAA do?
On Friday, the FAA installed a software upgrade that would help him to prevent failure. The desk also works on adding a third telecommunications line. And on Wednesday, officials from agencies and airlines met in Washington to discuss limiting flights at the airport.
While construction is underway, the agency is planning to limit the flights to 56 per hour, equally divided between arrivals and departure. That will limit the activities until next month, but not significantly, according to an analysis of the New York Times of Cirium flight schemes, an aviation data company.
The limit would then rise to 68 flights per hour, from mid -June to October. That would be a major decrease in many summer afternoons, if the number that is currently planned flights according to the Cirium data can reach the high 70s or low 80s.
United Airlines would be the most affected because it operates approximately 70 percent of the flights on Newark, one of the eight airport hubs. But if the FAA restrictions help to stabilize the activities at the airport, it would be worth it, said Andrew Nocella, Chief Commercial Officer of United, on Tuesday during a New York business event.
Mr Nocella described the limit at 68 flights per hour as ‘a great result’.
“Hopefully, when we get through the summer and in the fall, when we are tackled with the FAA, we can enlarge the number,” he said. “But the most important thing is to make sure that when you go to Newark, you can get on your plane and you know it goes and it goes on time.”
Only a few months ago Newark’s activities were not far behind those of other large airports in New York. During the 12 months that ended in January, 77 percent of Newark departure, compared to 78 percent at Kennedy International Airport and 80 percent on Laguardia Airport, according to federal data. In that period, 76 percent of the flights arrived at Newark was on time, compared to 77 percent at JFK and 79 percent in Laguardia.
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