In recent days, we’ve heard about problems at Newark International Airport (EWR), whereby flights are experiencing major delays, largely attributed to air traffic control issues. The situation is so bad that United has even slashed nearly 10% of its schedule at the airport for the foreseeable future, in order to minimize operational impacts.
Continue reading: Newark ATC Has Multiple Full Radar & Radio Outages: Embarrassing Chaos
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It's kind of funny the current admin has to deal with this. 180 republicans voted to defund the FAA in 2019. I guess that isn't going to work out for them.
"The FAA acknowledges that airport issues stem from both airport runway construction, as well as staffing and technology issues"
I understand the focus on the second reason for the outages but it kind of sounds like someone on the construction crew didn't call 811?
The calls by Kirby for re-slotting EWR need to be put aside and focus on getting stable and workable radar and radio communications.
The FAA needs to move heaven and earth to figure out why there continue to be technology failures and get them fixed yesterday. You shouldn't need congressional approval or a new budget to do routine maintenance.
The NE, once again, has less than desirable weather today on top of having a single runway out of service. Both are within the realm of what can be expected, with runway construction happening much less often.
Faulty technology - even if it is 50 years old - has to be kept workable and the FAA clearly can do that at other airports.
and, btw, when radar was out last week, commercial flights at EWR that were in line for takeoff were allowed w/ their company's approval to leave EWR under VFR flight rules and pick up ATC radar services and following 15 to 20 minutes into the flight.
I chuckled at myself thinking about a ditch witch cutting through a bunch of SM and MM fiber and some coax cables somewhere. But I think the truth is they're down a runway which is causing general congestion so the skies are slightly more crowded than usual. That's based off recent memory, tho.
Ben, will you be adding any functionality to allow readers to block certain commenters from their feeds? Just asking out of curiosity, not for any special reason or anything.
I already prefer LGA and JFK to EWR as, why would I want to cross into New Jersey? This just cements my feeling of avoiding Newark.
With the inept, corrupt clowns running this administration, the cure for this is going to be far worse than the disease.
Mark my words, you heard it here first: We are all going to be looking back with nostalgia at the Good Old Days of our antiquated Air Traffic Control system, 1940s technology and all. Elon's trolls are coming for this. So much grift to scoop up.
Good job pothole Pete. DEI. Look at this mess the men have to fix that THEY/THEM neglected.
Tim, being a man who will probably know …. how much of the disruption to air traffic in the U.S. is down to tired equipment, infrastructure and controllers, etc, as opposed to cyber attacks?
90 or even 30 seconds isn't a huge disruption at many airports but at the three dozen that are in class B airspace, any disruption is a big deal.
We still don't hear of ATC serving any other airports repeatedly losing radar or radio and THAT is the issue - not reduced capacity due to runway construction or weather and certainly not any desire to see EWR slot controlled again.
Yes, EWR is safe because there are so many redundancies in the system - as is true with all of aviation - but UA would do well to drop the narrative about reslotting EWR and focus on getting viable ATC services at EWR
Most ATC systems in Europe were upgraded years ago including electronic flight strips. London City Airport has remote digital atc, the first in the world. Whilst not perfect it’s way ahead. CDG and AMS upgraded systems in 2024.
Looking at that pic of the FAA centre it looks like something from the 1970s versus NATS at Swanwick in the U.K.
The FAA is seriously considering significant reductions to the capacity of Newark to be achieved by voluntary means, according to multiple sources
@DCAWABN,
I spent my carrier in IT including as CTO and CIO of a couple of national companies. We had a term BIF (backhoe induced failure). Telecom lines get cut more often than you like expect
Scott Kirby was wanting the FAA to slot control EWR at 48 departures/hour.
The FAA is proposing:
Outside ofthe construction period, through the end of Summer 2025 scheduling season ending October 25, 2025, FAA proposes a
targeted scheduling rate of 34 arrivals per hour, with a corresponding departure rate of 34 operations, resulting in no more than 68 total operations per hour. FAA believes that this proposal would reduce overscheduling, flight delays, and cancellations to an acceptable level at EWR and ensure the efficient use of the national airspace system (NAS). Proposed targeted
scheduling limits for this period will take place between 6:00 a.m. and 10:59 p.m.
This represents about a 1/3 reduction over what UA wants and presumably well below what UA is currently scheduling.
All airlines will be asked to offer their proposed reductions but clearly UA is going to be most impacted.
EWR has never been capable of handling the level of operations that UA has operated there ever since the CO merger - and probably long before that.
The competitive balance in NYC is very much uncertain.
Well that’s just false, nobody was taking off VFR in EWR class Bravo airspace lol. All airline SOP do not allow that. Especially during a radar outage.
there are ATC tapes with it on it. You might want to find those YouTube videos
Controllers said that they had never done it but it was permitted with dispatcher approval- 10 miles in trail spacing.
@BEN, How can I see or get notified if someone responds to my comment or the thread I commented on? I feel like since we got the new site ( I know it's been a while) that I have not been getting any notifications for follow up comments. Thanks