People are waiting on May 5, 2025 in Newark, Newark, Newark, Newark, Newark, Newark, Newark, Newark, Newark.
Spencer Platt | Getty pictures
Last week, the airlines lost contact with airplanes and from Newark Liberty International Airport.
The controllers who lead flights to New Jersey on April 28th have temporarily lost radar and communication with the plane under their control and unable to see, hear them or speak to them, “said the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, its union, in a statement.
The lack of staff followed the incident, which was so serious that some of the controllers involved “took the time to recover from the stress of several recent failures,” said the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday.
According to Flight-Tracker, there were more than 1,500 delays at New Jersey Airport last week, since the disorders disrupted air traffic controls due to the lack of airport.
“Our antiquated air traffic control system affects our workforce,” said the FAA. “We are working to ensure that the current telecommunications devices in the New York region are more reliable by determining a more resilient and redundant configuration with the local exchange providers.”
The FAA and the Union did not say how long the failure lasted, but Bloomberg reported and quoted the people familiar with the matter that it took almost 90 seconds.
United airlines Friday said that due to the delays it will do 35 flights a day from its center of New York City in Newark to put more in the system and to facilitate disorders.
In a reference to customers, CEO Scott Kirby said on Friday that “technological problems last week as over 20% of the FAA controller for EEA had relegated to work”.
“This special flight control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers it is now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark Airport cannot cope with the number of aircraft that should operate there in the coming weeks and months,” said Kirby in its note.
The union denied that the controllers held the job and explained that the employees took the time as part of the Federal Law for Employees, “covers all federal employees who are physically injured or experience a traumatic event at work”.
Read more CNBC Airline News
The United States has had a lack of air traffic controls for years. The Trump administration recently introduced new incentives for the setting and storage of controllers that have to retire at the age of 56.
Last year, the FAA moved controllers who are responsible for aircraft that arrive from a facility on Long Island in New York from Newark from another facility in Philadelphia, in the hope of reducing overloaded controllers that also took over traffic for the most important airports in New York City.
The airspace is some of the most clogged ones in the world.
“The port authority has invested billions to modernize Newark Liberty, but these improvements depend on a fully occupied and modern federal air traffic system,” says a statement on Monday, the port authority of New York and New Jersey, which monitors the most important airports in the New York City region. “We continue to ask the FAA to remedy the ongoing lack of personnel and accelerate long overdue technology upgrades that continue to cause delays in the country's most busy air corridor.”
The US Transport Minister Sean Duffy visited Philadelphia's establishment last week and said he would present plans for a “brand new air traffic control system” this week.
“The system we use is not effective to control the traffic we have today,” he told reporters last week.
Despite the aging technology, Duffy emphasized that the system was safe because, if not, the FAA would slow down aircraft overall when air traffic controls have capacity restrictions.
The governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, asked Duffy on Monday to deal with the personnel reductions in the establishment of Philadelphia, which Newark supervises, as well as the New York facility, which controls the traffic in and from Laguardia Airport and John F. Kennedy in Queens. From the Philadelphia Move and Service Reductions, Murphy wrote: “It is obvious that neither of the two efforts have led to the desired result.”
Murphy asked Duffy to prioritize the region in future investments.
“We expect millions of additional passengers next year if we prepare for organizing the World Cup final and have to avoid additional disorders or tribes on the system,” said Murphy in his letter.
The construction of the runway and the bad weather have added to Newark Travel Snarls in the past few days.
Comments are closed.