Air traffic control staffing issues are cascading into major delays for passengers flying in and out of the busy Newark airport outside of New York City for an unprecedented fifth day in a row.
On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration once again imposed delays for flights bound for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, citing staffing. The FAA’s Ground Delay Program details delays averaging more than two hours for flights bound to Newark.
The FAA has not commented officially on the nature of the staffing problems, though staffing has been listed by the FAA as the cause of delays since Monday equipment outages led to United Airlines canceling more than 100 flights and diverting 37 others.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby put out a statement Friday about the delays, saying the airport’s issues seem to be a combination of technology failures and “over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR (Newark Liberty International Airport) walked off the job.”
The airline will cancel 35 round-trip flights per day from their Newark schedule starting this weekend as “we feel like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers,” Kirby said.
“Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,” Kirby said in his statement.
United flight 1909 had to turn around over Nebraska Monday, halfway into its trip to Newark, and return to San Francisco.
“We have a team up there right now. They’re doing an ongoing investigation into the technology, the interruption itself,” FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau said during a Thursday news conference announcing the Trump administration’s latest incentives to hire new air traffic controllers.
“At the end of the day, we need to make sure the controllers have the proper equipment and that they’re obviously appropriately staffed,” Rocheleau said.
The Department of Transportation rolled out more financial incentives on Thursday to hire air traffic controllers and an incentive package to keep controllers from retiring, the latest move in combating an ongoing shortage of the Federal Aviation Administration’s critical work group.
There’s a shortage of about 3,000 controllers in the US, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a news conference at the DOT headquarters Thursday. Part of the incentives include a $5,000 bonus for those who go through the air traffic controller academy, as well as bonuses for controllers who go to facility locations that are harder to staff. The FAA is also working to incentivize controllers to stay on until they hit retirement age.
“You’re starting to see cracks in the system,” Duffy said at the news conference. “It’s our job to actually see over the horizon what the issues are and fix it before there is an incident that we will seriously regret.”
The new staffing-caused delays are just the latest development in problems plaguing the Newark airport as a busy summer travel season is fast approaching. Last July, the FAA relocated a key control facility responsible for Newark air traffic from Long Island to Philadelphia in hopes of enticing new hires to join the hard-to-staff facility.
A CNN analysis of FAA airspace advisories shows at least 14 straight days of FAA imposed delays for flights to or from Newark. The airport is also in the middle of a runway rehabilitation project that is regularly closing one of its main runways until mid-June.
FlightAware data showed roughly one in five Newark flights to or from Newark were canceled and more than 40% of all departures and arrivals were delayed on Thursday.
CNN’s Taylor Romine contributed to this report
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