FAA to Address Newark Airport Turmoil With Tech Upgrades, Staffing Push

The FAA said it will slow the rate of incoming flights into the New Jersey airport to ensure safety if any issues occur.

United Airlines planes at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Nov. 27, 2024. Vincent Alban/Reuters

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Wednesday it is taking immediate steps to address problems that have escalated flight delays and cancellations at Newark Airport in recent weeks.

In a statement, the agency explained that the air traffic controllers responsible for Newark’s airspace are based in Philadelphia, while the radar data processing system they rely on is in New York. A failure in the telecom connection that transmits that data to the Philly center was one of the key issues that triggered the current disruptions.

To improve communication and data flow, the FAA said it is installing three new high-bandwidth telecom connections between the Philly and New York facilities. It is also replacing aging copper lines with modern fiber-optic infrastructure for greater speed and reliability.

The FAA also pledged to address the ongoing staffing shortage, which was the reason it relocated air traffic controllers responsible for Newark skies from New York to Philadelphia last year. The agency currently has 21 controllers and supervisors in training specifically for Newark airspace operations, with 10 already receiving on-the-job training.

“We have a healthy pipeline with training classes filled through July 2026,” the agency said.

When staffing or equipment issues occur, the FAA said it will slow the rate of incoming flights into Newark to ensure safety.

The airport in Newark, New Jersey, has been in various stages of meltdown since April 28, when a radio and radar outage briefly caused controllers in the Philly center to lose track of and communication with flights under their control. Since then, several controllers on duty during the incident have taken medical leave, citing stress and trauma.

“Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers,” the FAA said in a statement on Monday. “Some controllers at the [Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control] who work Newark arrivals and departures have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages.”

Poor weather and runway construction also contributed to the turmoil, according to the FAA.

United Airlines, the largest carrier at Newark, said it is canceling 35 daily flights, roughly 10 percent of its schedule, in response to the ongoing issues. The airline, which historically operated about 440 flights daily out of Newark, has now reduced that number to 293, following earlier cuts prompted by runway construction.

In a May 2 letter to customers, United CEO Scott Kirby described the past week as “chaotic.”

“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.

He also called on the federal government to reinstate slot limitations at Newark, which would cap the number of scheduled flights to a level the airport can realistically handle.

“Other airlines simply backfill our flying when we reduce our schedule,” Kirby wrote. “In reality, only the FAA can actually fix [Newark].”