Air travel chaos struck Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturday as a nationwide air traffic controller shortage caused significant flight delays and cancellations.
Passengers faced major disruptions, adding to a week of ongoing issues at the busy New York City area airport.
United Airlines, citing the Federal Aviation Administration’s alleged failure to tackle long-standing air traffic control system challenges, slashed 35 daily flights from its Newark schedule starting Saturday. The Trump administration has pledged to resolve the nationwide air traffic controller staffing issues.
United CEO Scott Kirby said the technology used to manage planes at the New Jersey airport failed more than once in recent days. The flight delays, cancellations and diversions the equipment problems caused were compounded when more than one-fifth of Newark’s traffic controllers “walked off the job,” he said.
“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 wrote in a letter to customers.
Airport status reports from the FAA data said staffing issues were causing average delays of nearly two hours for some arriving flights at Newark, and average delays of 45 minutes for departures.
Two days earlier, Newark Liberty International Airport pointed to both staffing issues and “construction” when warning travelers about delays.
The Trump administration says it’s been trying to “supercharge” the air traffic controller workforce and make moves to address the nation’s shortage of controllers. The U.S. transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, on Thursday announced a program to recruit new controllers and give existing ones incentives not to retire.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a workers’ union, said at the time that those moves could help address staffing shortages, but it also said the system is “ long overdue for technology and infrastructure upgrades.”
Duffy said on Friday that he visited with “our hard working air traffic controllers as we work to fix these equipment outages caused by outdated technology.”
United’s decision to pare back its flight schedule in Newark come at an already uncertain time for U.S. airlines. Potential customers across the industry are reconsidering whether to fly for work or for vacation given all the unknowns about what President Donald Trump’s trade war will do to the economy.
Uncertainty is so high that United recently made the unusual move to offer two separate forecasts for how it could perform financially this year: one if there were a recession, and one if not.
From Newark, United flies to 76 U.S. cities and 81 international destinations.
