NEW YORK — Due to a deficit of air traffic controllers, which the Trump administration has promised to address nationwide, passengers traveling to or from Newark Liberty International Airport experienced lengthy delays and cancellations on Saturday.
Throughout the week, there were difficulties at the popular airport outside of New York City. Beginning Saturday, United Airlines canceled 35 daily flights from its Newark schedule, blaming the Federal Aviation Administration for allegedly failing to fix “long-simmering” issues with the air-traffic control system.
According to Scott Kirby, CEO of United, the technology that controls aircraft at the airport in New Jersey has malfunctioned multiple times in the last few days. He said that more than one-fifth of Newark’s traffic controllers “walked off the job,” adding to the flight delays, cancellations, and diversions brought on by the technical issues.
Kirby wrote in a letter to customers, “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 — because this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years.”
According to airport status reports based on FAA data, staffing problems were resulting in average delays of 45 minutes for departures and nearly two hours for certain arriving planes at Newark.
When alerting travelers of delays two days prior, Newark Liberty International Airport cited “construction” as well as staffing concerns.
In an effort to alleviate the country’s controller deficit, the Trump administration claims to have been working to “supercharge” the air traffic controller staff. Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation for the United States, proposed a plan Thursday to encourage current controllers to stay in their positions and recruit new ones.
At the time, the workers’ union National Air Traffic Controllers Association stated that while those actions would help with personnel shortages, the system is “long overdue for technology and infrastructure upgrades.”
He spoke with “our hard working air traffic controllers as we work to fix these equipment outages caused by outdated technology,” Duffy said on Friday.
United’s plan to reduce its Newark flight schedule comes at a time when American carriers are already facing uncertainty. Given all the uncertainties surrounding the effects of President Donald Trump’s trade war on the economy, potential clients in the sector are reevaluating whether to travel for business or pleasure.
Due to the high level of uncertainty, United recently took the uncommon step of providing two different financial performance projections for this year: one assuming a recession and one assuming not.
