Newark Airport Woes Spell Trouble Ahead Of Summer Travel Season
Air traffic control staffing issues continued to cause major delays on Monday at Newark Liberty International Airport — one of the three major airports serving the New York City area and busiest U.S. airports. Issues at the airport are now stretching into a second straight week. And, Aviation reporter Peter Greenberg told Mo News that "it's not just Newark, it's the Northeast Corridor" which runs from Boston to Washington, D.C. that is facing these staffing problems.
Thousands of flights have been delayed and hundreds canceled out of Newark amid staffing shortages, technical issues, and poor weather conditions over the last week. Greenberg said the news is unsurprising and a "perfect storm" has been brewing for years, which can be traced back to the Reagan administration when the president fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who were striking for better pay and working conditions.
WELCOME TO NEWARK
United Airlines, which has a major hub at Newark, announced over the weekend that it cut 35 round-trip flights per day from its schedule there. United CEO Scott Kirby said the airline had “no other choice in order to protect our customers,” alleging that more than 20% of FAA controllers at Newark walked off the job. That is on top of already short-staffing in the control towers at most of the nation’s airports.
So, is it safe? Greenberg noted that United's move to reduce the flight load has made the airport safer, but it does not address the core staff problem which has been around for decades.
The FAA manages an average of 45,000 flights daily in the U.S. "Nothing happened yesterday and nothing happened today, and we're obviously counting on the fact that nothing will happen tomorrow. But the fact that the ingredients are there to create a problem is enough of an alarm for us to fix it," Greenberg said.
Next step, he says, is getting a “national mandate” to bring about change and overhaul the aging system, bring in additional resources for new staff, and improve work conditions.
WHAT THE FEDS ARE DOING
It follows Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s announcement last week that the FAA is on track to hire at least 2,000 controllers this year, while acknowledging that the U.S. is facing a shortfall of about 3,000. The Department of Transportation has rolled out financial incentives to recruit new controllers and retain existing staff until retirement age.
The issue: Working as an air traffic controller is a demanding job already, then understaffing forced workers into 10-hour days, six days a week.
To get hired, an applicant must be younger than 31 as the FAA mandates controllers retire by age 56 — further limiting the pool.
The mess at Newark comes after the January collision at Washington National Airport (DCA) between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter that made many people nervous about the safety of the American aviation system. The NTSB is still investigating the cause of the DCA crash, but a preliminary FAA report on the crash did note there was one air traffic controller doing the job of two the night of the crash.