Newark Airport delays and cancellations, explained : NPR

Hundreds of flight delays and cancellations at one of the nation’s busiest airports over the past several days are giving passengers headaches and spurred the U.S. Senate’s top Democrat to call for an investigation into the cause.

Several compounding issues are hitting Newark Liberty International Airport at once: air traffic controller staffing shortages, aging technology, bad weather, and the closure of one of the airport’s busiest runways.

On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, said on X that he was demanding “a full Inspector General investigation into what happened at Newark so these problems don’t get worse, or spread to airports across the nation.”

By the end of the day, Newark had reported 424 flights were delayed on their way in and out of the airport and 160 flights canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

By Tuesday evening, FlightAware reported that around 340 flights were delayed on their way coming into and out of Newark and 114 flights were canceled.

That morning, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a new ground delay program for the airport, and by around 4 p.m. it was estimating delays for planes arriving at Newark at more than 4 hours.

We spoke to aviation safety and travel experts to get a handle on what’s going on.

What’s happening and what is the scope and scale of the disruption?

Bad weather and the three-month closure for repairs of the airport’s busiest runway for departing flights have exacerbated delays at Newark.

But the shortage of air traffic controllers is among the most serious problems at Newark — an issue that has affected airports across the country for years. It took on greater significance after the Jan. 29 midair collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which killed 67 people. A full investigation into the crash will examine the role air traffic controllers may have had in the incident.

In the weeks prior to that crash, the Trump administration had begun laying off hundreds of FAA employees as part of a federal effort to cut back on workers. Officials said controllers and other “critical safety personnel” were not among those laid off.

Multiple near-misses after the January collision have only spurred more talk about the need to improve the nation’s air traffic control system.

On April 28, air traffic controllers stationed at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control, which is responsible for separating and sequencing planes in and out of Newark, lost all radar and communications with a plane, leaving them unable to hear or talk to the pilots, according to the controllers’ union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

The communications blackout lasted anywhere from 30 seconds, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the FAA, to 90 seconds according to some reports — an “alarming” amount of time when it comes to air travel, said Hassan Shahidi, the CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation. The plane landed safely.

“The air traffic controllers need real-time uninterrupted communications and radar, and without that, they cannot manage and see their planes in the airspace,” Shahidi said, calling for an investigation to understand what went wrong.

Several air traffic controllers took time off to deal with the stress and trauma of that experience, the union and the FAA said in statements shared with NPR.

The FAA told NPR in a statement that this outage was not the only one to happen in recent days. It said there were “multiple recent” equipment and telecommunications outages.

But, given the highly skilled work of air traffic controllers, filling those empty chairs is quite difficult — and has been for some time.

In December, United’s CEO Scott Kirby told NPR that the FAA was about 3,000 air traffic controllers short and said the shortage would lead to delays across the country. At the time, he pointed to Newark, United’s hub, as an example of an airport that needed more staff to prevent continued long delays.

“For the whole month of November, we had over half a million customers that were delayed because of air traffic control shortfalls in Newark alone. It is the biggest issue, the biggest opportunity to make air travel better for customers in the United States,” Kirby said at the time.

Last Friday, Kirby, fed up with the delays, announced his airline was immediately canceling 35 round-trip flights at Newark per day.

In a message, Kirby wrote “we feel like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers.”

The FAA has been making efforts to address staffing issues. Last week, Duffy announced a new recruitment award and retention incentive program to boost hiring of controllers.

There’s been a lot of talk about aging tech. How does this come into play?

The chaos at Newark highlights the aging air traffic technology the airline industry relies on, aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti told NPR’s Here and Now on Tuesday.

Air traffic controllers “also are challenged with equipment that is difficult to upgrade and becomes obsolete very quickly,” he said.

The FAA needs to tackle modernizing its infrastructure and getting more controllers to work traffic, Guzzetti added.

As the flight delays and cancellations continue, the FAA said it was making changes to ensure the existing telecommunications equipment and automation system is more reliable.

On Tuesday afternoon outside the White House, Duffy said he’d proposed a plan to build a new air traffic control system to President Trump, who signed off on the proposal.

Duffy also blamed the Biden administration for not doing enough to modernize the air traffic control system.

He said the current system “is anywhere between 25 to 50 years old,” with copper wires and antiquated radios and radar.

Do passengers have to worry about safety?

No, not according to Duffy, the FAA, and aviation experts.

The FAA says it ensures continued safety “by slowing the rate of arrivals into the airport” — meaning delays and in some cases cancellations at Newark.

The FAA and air traffic controllers “never compromise safety,” said Shahidi, of the Flight Safety Foundation. “If a facility is understaffed, it will certainly reduce capacity but not compromise safety.”

He said, “We have controllers that are trained and doing their jobs well. We have pilots that are trained and they’re doing their jobs very well. And so from that perspective, we do not see an issue.”

How quickly can this be resolved?

Sean Cudahy, a senior aviation reporter for the travel website The Points Guy, said simply: “There’s not really a good indication of when this is going to end.”

He added: “The problems that are fueling this aren’t going away anytime soon. You’ve got this kind of overarching shortage of air traffic controllers that’s really been exacerbated here in recent days. They’re not going to be back immediately, and you’ve got runway construction and thunderstorms that you know are just going to continue to cause problems, in all likelihood, into the summer.”

It will take a long time to address the commercial aviation industry holistically.

As for controller staffing shortages, Guzzetti, the aviation safety consultant, said the job “takes unique skills. So you have to find those people with those inherent skills, and then you have to train them.”

Even after that, there is a “30% washout rate” and around two years more of training once they finish the initial steps, according to Guzzetti.

“And it takes even longer to modernize the system,” he added.

How should passengers prepare if they are flying through Newark?

Cudahy, with The Points Guy, urged passengers flying in and out of Newark to plan ahead.

He recommended taking a look at their airline’s website for travel advisories that may offer passengers the chance to switch flights to a different airport, like nearby LaGuardia in New York City.

What if your travel plans include a connection in Newark? Cudahy recommends scrapping them for a direct flight.

And finally, he reminds passengers of the Transportation Department’s policy that allows for a full refund if your flight is canceled or significantly delayed. But that refund is only available when a passenger doesn’t accept a rebooked flight from the original airline.

“If you accept rebooking, even if it’s 36 hours later, you would not be entitled to that refund under federal policy,” Cudahy said.