Meeting to address delays at ‘unacceptably congested’ Newark Liberty International Airport continues Friday

Washington (CNN) — A meeting to discuss reducing the number of flights at Newark Liberty International Airport resumed Friday in the wake of critical air traffic control problems around the metro New York hub and other US airports.

The “delay reduction meeting,” called by the Federal Aviation Administration, started Wednesday and seeks to get airlines to agree to not fly as many flights into busy Newark airport to minimize cancellations and delays.

“The FAA has brought in together all of the airlines who serve Newark to have a conversation about how there can be a delayed reduction,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told a congressional hearing Wednesday. “So, if you book your flight, that flight is going to fly. You don’t have people at the airport for two, four, six, hours, then a flight canceled.”

United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air all attended the meeting. Airlines are required to follow specific procedures during the sessions to ensure compliance with anti-trust regulations.

The broader air traffic control meltdown across the US has involved communication losses, near misses, small airplane crashes and the tragic midair collision in January near Washington, DC, that killed 67 people.

With the flying public’s anxieties already raised, the recent problems in the federal government’s trusted air travel system has forced the Department of Transportation to streamline a new air traffic control plan that aims to mend aging infrastructure and update decades-old technology.

The ongoing meeting about Newark airport’s traffic comes after more than two weeks of delays and cancellations prompted by air traffic control staffing shortages at a Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, facility that handles flights headed to or from the Newark airport, plus runway construction and congestion.

Thirty-eight certified professional controllers are needed to operate the facility that handles Newark traffic, yet only 24 of the positions – 63% – are currently filled, the FAA notes in the meeting announcement. Sixteen of those controllers are due to return to a New York FAA facility next year.

Additionally, five controllers took a 45-day trauma leave after an outage on April 28 caused their radar screens to go blank for 90 seconds and their radios to go out for 30 seconds during the busy afternoon.

The outage happened when a primary telecommunications line failed and a backup line did not kick in, FAA Deputy Chief Operating Officer Franklin McIntosh testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing.

“That redundant line is supposed to assume that that load, and it’s supposed to be instantaneous,” he said. “When we lost that first line, the second line did not kick in like it was designed to do.”

The data lines were installed after the facility moved from New York to Philadelphia in July, but it is not unique to Newark, McIntosh said. “We have this system across the United States feeding radar data like this, where we have a line in a redundant line, and we haven’t had a failure like this degree in my memory,” he said.

An FAA task force, including telecommunication providers Crown Castle and Verizon, met this week with the aim of installing a third line by this summer.

The Department of Transportation has promised additional upgrades to this facility as well as the entire air traffic control system in the months and years ahead.

At the House Appropriations Committee hearing, Duffy outlined nearly $27 billion in discretionary spending the department is requesting for the next fiscal year, including more than $1 billion increase to help modernize the air traffic control system.

McIntosh acknowledged staffing is tight in the TRACON facility with just three controllers working all Newark arrivals and departures over one hour Monday night.

“I’m trying to understand, why is it that we’re now down from seven, which is basically what you think you need, down to three?” asked Sen. Maria Cantwell, ranking member of the committee.

“We did lose some controllers in that area due to either some sick leave that was unscheduled or some other leave that was not scheduled,” McIntosh responded. “When those things happen… we’ll put in the appropriate traffic management initiatives to keep the flying public safe and make sure that we put controllers in the position to be successful.”

Newark ‘clearly is unable to handle’ flight schedule, FAA says

Since April 15, traffic management initiatives at Newark have included ground stops and ground delays, which keep planes heading to Newark from taking off.

“When we have a staffing shortage and we cannot open enough positions, we put in traffic management initiatives to slow the aircraft down,” McIntosh said. “That’s exactly what we did that night at Philadelphia area C, we put in a ground delay program to keep traffic manageable.”

Since runway construction at Newark started April 15, the airport saw an average of 34 cancellations per day and “consistently high” delayed arrivals, with an average delay time of 137 minutes during the 5 p.m. hour each evening.

“EWR is unacceptably congested airport due to current circumstances,” the FAA said, referring to Newark’s airport code, in the delay reduction meeting notice. “The airport clearly is unable to handle the current level of scheduled operations.”

Each airline will be asked to offer “specific flight reductions or schedule modifications” not contingent on what other airlines do, the notice said. The FAA will then consider an order that could limit schedules at the airport.

Chicago-based United Airlines, which operates a hub at Newark, recently called for assigned “slots” at the airport, which would require government approval before any flights could be scheduled.

In the meeting notice, the FAA proposed limiting flights to only 28 domestic airline arrivals and 28 departures per hour until runway construction is complete on June 15, and during weekends in the fall. During other times, 34 domestic airline arrivals and 34 departures would be allowed each hour at the airport.

International air operations will be managed through a different process.

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