By David Shepardson
(Reuters) -The U.S. Transportation Department is working with airlines to cut flights at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport and boost air traffic staffing after hundreds of flights have been disrupted since April 28, Secretary Sean Duffy said on Tuesday.
Duffy told CNN the department is in the process of bringing together the airlines that serve Newark and “having a conversation about how they reduce their capacity in Newark” to address numerous delays of as much as five hours to flights over the last week.
The airport has been hit by runway construction, Federal Aviation Administration equipment outages and air traffic control staffing shortages that prompted urgent calls from lawmakers for investigations and new funding for Newark, the busy airport just outside New York.
Duffy said earlier that controllers overseeing planes at Newark lost contact with aircraft on April 28 for 30 seconds, an incident that raised serious alarm.
He said the FAA has controllers in training that he hopes to bring online to handle Newark traffic and aims to get new telecommunications equipment for Newark air traffic control.
On Friday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said the Chicago-based carrier that operates the most flights from Newark was cutting another 35 daily flights — or 10% of its schedule — after he said 20% of the FAA controllers for Newark had walked off the job.
On Monday, the controllers’ union said the workers did not walk off the job but took leave under a law providing for absences for injuries or on-the-job trauma.
Newark’s airport has also been undergoing runway construction this spring that has cut capacity, and the FAA has faced a persistent nationwide shortage of controllers.
United said it has historically flown 440 flights daily out of Newark, but after cutting flights earlier this spring due to the runway construction and the latest cuts, it is now down to 293.
The FAA last year relocated control of the Newark airspace to Philadelphia to address staffing and congested New York City area traffic.
Kirby wants Duffy to designate Newark as a slot controlled airport, which would allow the FAA to limit the number of departing or arriving flights due to congestion and capacity constraints to prevent delays.
Reuters first reported last week that major U.S. airlines have asked the FAA to extend cuts to minimum flight requirements at congested New York City-area airports through October 2027, citing severe air traffic controller staffing shortages.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Bill Berkrot)
