Delays and cancellations continued to upend operations at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday, after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said some air traffic controllers are taking time off following recent outages.
The turmoil also comes after United Airlines said over the weekend that it would cut 35 daily flights from the airport located not far from New York City.
Inbound flight delays have hit an average of 2 hours and 41 minutes, per officials.
Here’s what to know about the situation:
How did the delays begin?
On April 28, air traffic controllers briefly lost communication — for about 90 seconds — with planes at Newark Airport.
Controllers at a Philadelphia control center, who were responsible for monitoring air traffic in and out of the airport, lost radar and communications with the flights. “They were unable to “see, hear, or talk to them,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said, according to The New York Times.
The blackout and communication breakdown led to hundreds of flights being delayed or canceled. Three dozen flights were also diverted that day, said Aidan O’Donnell, the general manager of New Jersey airports, the Times reported.
The situation worsened when air traffic controllers took absences under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, which allows federal workers who are injured or experience a trauma on the job to take time off.
Airline response
In a letter to customers Friday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby highlighted the tension between his company and the FAA in regard to efforts to “permanently and structurally” fix the agency. Those challenges boiled over last week, he said.
“In the past few days, on more than one occasion, technology that FAA air traffic controllers rely on to manage the airplanes coming in and out of Newark airport failed — resulting in dozens of diverted flights, hundreds of delayed and canceled flights and worst of all, thousands of customers with disrupted travel plans,” he wrote.
Kirby said the issues were compounded when about 20 percent of the airport’s air traffic controllers took their absence. He warned customers that Newark Airport cannot handle the number of incoming and outgoing planes in the next weeks and months without adequate staff.
The United executive said the airline was looking to minimize the impact the staffing and technology issues the Newark Airport will have on customers when announcing the airline would cut 35 daily flights to the region.
He said the company’s been urging the government for years to limit flights to what specific airports can “realistically handle.” Kirby shared that he recently spoke with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and said he was pleased the Trump administration had a proposal for modernizing the FAA.
Trump administration action
Since taking office earlier this year, the Trump administration has sought to fix the FAA’s outdated air traffic control system and address the shortage of controllers.
Duffy previously announced the efforts and unveiled a program that would recruit new controllers while incentivizing existing ones not to leave their positions, despite previous caps on how long they could stay in the role.
In a statement Monday, the FAA said it was working to make sure current telecommunications equipment is “more reliable in the New York area.”
“Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers,” the agency said, noting some who work at Newark have taken time off to “recover from the stress of multiple recent outages.”
FAA officials said while the agency cannot replace the controllers who took a leave of absence quickly, it continues to train controllers who will one day be assigned to the Newark area.
Duffy said earlier this week that he and President Trump are going to “radically transform” air traffic control by building a “brand new system that is the envy of the world.” He outlined some of the priorities in an interview with Fox News on Monday and suggested more details would emerge Thursday.
Outdated technology worsening issue
The FAA has admitted that its technology systems are outdated and in need of updating.
According to a March report from Forbes, 92 percent of the FAA’s budget is spent on maintaining obsolete technologies, including floppy disks.
A Government Accountability Office report from 2024 found that the FAA “urgently” needed to modernize its “aging systems,” noting that many platforms managing air traffic were unsustainable. The FAA then determined that 51 of its 138 systems were unsustainable due to outdated technology or products.
“The agency has been slow to modernize the most critical and at-risk systems,” the report said, noting that some modernization efforts would not be completed for six to 13 years.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) released a budget reconciliation proposal that would allocate $15 billion to modernize the FAA’s air traffic control technology.
Duffy has stated that he intends to “supercharge” staffing amid shortages and direct funding to updating the FAA’s systems.
He said during a Monday interview that the Newark-area primary communication line and backup had been fixed but the outage showed the country has a “frail system in place.”
Updated at 11:30 a.m. EDT
