In the United States, air traffic control is a bit of a problem, with outdated infrastructure, and a shortage of air traffic controllers. Not only does this impact flight operations, but it’s unfair to those existing controllers, who have a much bigger workload than they should. These factors also impact the industry’s safety margins.
Continue reading: United Slashes Newark Flights, As 20% Of Air Traffic Controllers Walk Off Job
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I gagged when I read his inherited comment. Gimme a break. And why do I think UA added more flights to that airport than they knew could be handled so they’re accountable too
EWR is cutting 35 flights at EWR. Hardly "slashing" but EWR is a hot mess of an airport. Always has been. I avoid it, and I refuse to fly United, as it is led by a MAGA CEO.
Are you going to stop using every single tech product as well, seeing as every major tech company CEO cozied up to Trump as soon as Trump won?
The issue America has right now is structural. Boycotting individual companies is both unrealistic and ineffective.
Maybe you should look into the controllers that were forced to move to PHL against their will and the massive equipment failures that have occurred because of it. The FAA and airlines want to keep it quiet but THATS what should be reported on more.
I can’t find a list of which flights are being slashed from EWR. Does it exist anywhere?
I'm going to go out on the limb and guess that they're the lowest profit/load factor flights, not necessarily the peak time ones.
When Kirby has meetings with the new administration, does he spit or swallow?
Brings new meaning to the label "suck up."
It’s also with mentioning that one of the airport’s main runways (22R/4L) has been shut down for construction and will be fully closed until the summer, so add that to the mess… On days when Runway 29 is not in use for landings, it’s even worse (since they’ll only uuse 22L/4R for all takeoffs and landings). I’ll be avoiding EWR until at least the fall.
IIRC, there was a software team working for several years on a replacement system, but they were recently fired for being redundant.
“Concept of a plan”
I love it.
I hope his “plan” doesn’t have the same affect in airplanes as it did on the stock market!
FAA Air Traffic Controllers DO NOT walk off the job. LOL!!! They are federal unionized employees who get a fixed salary and benefits
People of course have to make this political because of limited intelligence. Simple, if air controllers can't handle the current volume of traffic then the airport needs to reduce flights. Airports regularly allow more flights than an airport can handle and as a result there are constant ground delays as there is a shortage of available gates or congestion on taxiways/aprons/alleyways. I don't know this is the case but too many flights for too few controllers has nothing to do with politics.
Almost definitely. Most major US airports have flight schedules that can only be realistically met when weather is perfect. The second visibility drops, pop-up storms occur, an ATC misses their shift, etc etc the wheels start to come off. The US has overinvested in an inherently fragile system, and political decisions (Reagan firing the PATCO controllers, current admin trying to push out as many gov employees as possible) have made a bad situation worse. At the same time, rail links along the east coast have been barely funded and improved, when an actual HSR system could have been built long ago along the east coast from Boston down to Florida and west out to Chicago, connecting a massive swath of the US population with a more robust and higher capacity intercity transportation network.
Yes, this is the cause for things becoming so bad at EWR. The airport is currently opoperating as a 1.5 runway airport, which has caused massive delays and crazy airspace challenges, which has lead to controllers quitting, which has lead to even more delays and shortfalls. The fact that radar and radios have completly gone out at times is a whole nother crazy crazy issue. Hopefully by early june the main runway wiill be open and a lot of the congestion issues will ease.
It must be known: A HUGE part of this is the closing of the main runway for about 6 weeks for reconstruction. Traffic has been especially bad at EWR directly because of this. This is basically the entore reason things are awful.
US is a dumpster fire of a nation. Only the political will to fight mostly fake and/or superficial “culture wars” than to invest in its ppl and operations/long term viability (whilst running up unrecoverable deficits and inflation ~ to support the economic/social elites).
I guess we should expect poorly designed and implemented AI and contract (overseas cheap) labor coming to ATC, at an airport near you very very soon. Good night and good luck.
You think MAGA Kirby wasn’t already aware of how much of a sht show Newark was going to be? He just waited until it truly got bad again to do anything about it. Nothing new here folks!
Swallow.
The American corporate capitalism way. Suck up to government. Get the government to spend public $ to support your private business (e.g. pay for more controllers), then ask for and get new regulations (e.g. Level 3 for EWR) to defend your piece of real estate on the Monoloply board and box out any competition.
Yet another reason why one finds it had to justify spending one’s own money on air travel in the U.S.
Former gate agent here. EWR on a sunny day, calm winds, clear skies, and no runway construction is a mess. They can build new pretty terminals all they want but ultimately all it's doing is putting lipstick on a pig. UA got itself into this mess by basically turning EWR into a transoceanic gateway hub knowing that it's one of if not the worst airport in the country in terms of on time performance.
The controllers didn't walk off the job. They went on trauma leave after the stressful events caused by equipment failures. This happened after the outages in November too: https://theaircurrent.com/feed/dispatches/newark-outages-workplace-trauma/
Who was the idiot at united that ended the Amtrak codeshare?
Simply stop flying 14 daily 50 seat planes to DC
I went through EWR yesterday from Stockholm on my way home to Houston. It was a mess and I'm still trying to get them to find my luggage which my Air Tag says is in Newark.
Some flights were already moved to IAD for the runway construction. But that is scheduled to end after June
Poor United, if only there was a nearby airport where they could grow their operation via a partnership with another airline, since they can’t expand at Newark.
I was one of the controllers who "walked off the job" in 1981 as a federal, unionized employee and never looked back. 44 years later the ATC system is right where it was in '81. Outdated equipment, shortage of controllers, airports allowing more flights than can reasonably be handled and of course the FAA and the current controllers union do nothing.
I haven’t seen a list anywhere. I’m not sure if they’re taking it day by day or will publish a blanket list of reductions.
Amazing to see the anti-Trump brainless crowd jump to conclusions. Please tell me how a president who has been in office for just about 100 days somehow created the systemic issue within the FAA we see today?
Typical limited thinking as always
Thank God someone said this. I'm surprised Ben didn't know about the N90 breakup that happened last year. It's the root cause of these issues.
I hear about this and I don't think it's a legitimate reason. The runway work was planned well ahead, everyone knows about it and has planned in advance. EWR as a result is already getting fewer flights during this time of construction. The issues with FAA isn't going to be resolved with more runway availability if the limitations are from the ATC.
United would 100% change it's tune about making slot controlled if they were capped at their share of flights... aka reduce UA slots by 20% so competition remains but traffic is reduced.
Until people become unwilling to appease fascist that attacked our democracy in 2021 because his ego wrote checks the reality refused to cash, America will soon implode. No one is demanding you admit you made a mistake if you voted for him in 2025. Just support getting rid of him, MAGAism and his destroy America agenda the same way we rid this country of segregation, Jim Crow and politics that only served the elite few rather than the people.