By The Related Press
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to cut back the variety of flights out and in of the Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport for the “next several weeks,” as New Jersey’s largest airport struggles with radar outages and different points, together with one Sunday, and flight delays and cancellations attributable to a scarcity of air visitors controllers.
Talking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Duffy stated he’ll convene a gathering with all of the airways flying out of Newark this week to find out the discount, including that it’s going to fluctuate, with a bigger discount coming within the afternoons when worldwide flight arrivals make the airport busier.
“We want to have a number of flights that if you book your flight, you know it’s going to fly, right?” he stated. “That is the priority. So you don’t get to the airport, wait four hours, and then get delayed.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reported a “telecommunications issue” on Sunday on the facility in Philadelphia that directs planes out and in of Newark airport. The company stated in a press release that it briefly slowed plane out and in of the airport, whereas making certain that “redundancies were working as designed.” Operations then returned to regular.
That difficulty emerged two days after radar on the facility in Philadelphia went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday, an episode that was just like an incident on April 28.
The FAA stated in a press release final week that it slows the speed of arrivals into Newark to make sure security when staffing or tools points happen. The company famous that frequent tools and telecommunications outages may be worrying, prompting some air visitors controllers to take day off “to recover from the stress.”
“While we cannot quickly replace them due to this highly specialized profession, we continue to train controllers who will eventually be assigned to this busy airspace,” the FAA stated in a Could 5 assertion.
There was a mean of 34 arrival cancellations per day since mid-April at Newark, in line with the FAA, with the variety of delays rising all through the day from a mean of 5 within the mornings to 16 by the night. They have a tendency to final 85 to 137 minutes on common.
The Trump administration proposed a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the U.S. air visitors management system Thursday that features six new air visitors management facilities and expertise and communications upgrades at the entire nation’s air visitors amenities over the following three or 4 years.
Duffy stated Sunday that he additionally plans to boost the obligatory retirement age for air visitors controllers from 56 to 61, as he tries to navigate a scarcity of about 3,000 folks in that specialised place.
He plans to offer these air visitors controllers a 20% upfront bonus to remain on the job. Nevertheless, he says many air visitors controllers select to retire after 25 years of service, which suggests many retire across the age of fifty.
“These are not overnight fixes,” Duffy stated. “But as we go up — one, two years, older guys on the job, younger guys coming in, men and women — we can make up that 3,000-person difference.”
Including extra air visitors controllers is in distinction to a prime precedence of the Trump administration — slashing jobs in almost all different federal businesses. Nevertheless, United Airways CEO Scott Kirby stated on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Duffy deserves credit score for placing “caution tape” round FAA security features and separating these personnel from DOGE cost-cutting.
Kirby stated United has already decreased its schedule at Newark, and can meet with Duffy later this week. He expects a deeper lower in capability to final till June 15 when development to considered one of Newark’s runways is predicted to be full, although he thinks some reductions will final all through the summer time.
“We have fewer flights, but we keep everything safe, and we get the airplane safely on the ground,” Kirby stated. “Safety is number one, and so I’m not worried about safety. I am worried about customer delays and impacts.”
Initially Revealed: Could 11, 2025 at 9:01 AM EDT
