In the United States, air traffic control is a bit of a problem, with outdated infrastructure, and a shortage of air traffic controllers.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.
Newark International Airport (EWR) is one of the major airports that has most consistently been impacted by these air traffic control shortcomings, leading to operational challenges. So there’s now an interesting update…
In this post:
United CEO Scott Kirby addresses Newark mess
United has really been struggling with operational reliability in Newark in recent days:
- On Wednesday, 3% of flights were canceled, and 44% of flights were delayed
- On Thursday, 18% of flights were canceled, and 44% of flights were delayed
- On Friday, 2% of flights were canceled and, 47% of flights were delayed
In response to these ongoing issues, on Friday afternoon, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby published a letter to customers. Let me just share it in its entirety, because it’s quite something (bolding mine):
For many years, United has been very clear and vocal about the need to fix the Air Traffic Control system in EWR. While we enthusiastically support the efforts underway to permanently and structurally fix the FAA, the long-simmering FAA challenges boiled over this week.
In the past few days, on more than one occasion, 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. Unfortunately, the technology issues were compounded as over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job. Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead.
United is committed to doing absolutely everything in our power to minimize the impact that this will have on customers and so we are unilaterally cancelling 35 roundtrip flights per day from our Newark schedule starting this weekend. It’s disappointing to make further cuts to an already reduced schedule at Newark, but since there is no way to resolve the near-term structural FAA staffing issues, we feel like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers.
These challenges are not new to Newark. United has been urging the US government for *years* to use its authority to effectively limit the number of flights to what the airport can realistically handle. Past failure to make those changes had led to the circumstances that United and, most importantly, our customers now face.
I spoke with Sec. Duffy this afternoon and appreciate his immediate response to my call. We’re pleased that the new administration has put together a proposal for a large, systemwide investment in FAA technology, infrastructure and staffing. In the medium to long term, it’s the only way to solve the systemwide problem. Now, we’re encouraging them to apply this decisive leadership to the difficult situation they inherited at Newark, too – by designating it as a slot controlled, Level 3 airport.
Newark is an incredible airport and takes our customers to 76 different US cities and 81 international destinations. I want to thank the dedicated United team that’s been working hard – especially over the last few days – to take care of our customers at this difficult time. There are also highly skilled professionals at the FAA, including air traffic controllers, who are persevering through technology and staffing shortfalls to ensure that the tens of thousands of people traveling through Newark every day get to their destinations safely. By using the authority it has, the FAA can help Newark fulfill its incredible potential to be a safe, reliable and efficient gateway to the world for the American traveling public.

Flight cuts, slot restrictions, and controllers walking off job
As you can see, United is canceling 35 daily flights out of Newark for the foreseeable future, representing about 10% of the carrier’s schedule. That’s a pretty significant chunk of flights, especially when you consider the amount of long haul service the airline has out of the airport, which requires connectivity.
Kirby is also calling on Newark to have the highest level of slot controls once again. Newark is currently a Level 2 airport, meaning that there are no slots, but airlines sometimes have to agree to schedule changes around peak times. Meanwhile Kirby wants it to be a Level 3 airport, meaning it would be fully slot restricted.
Interestingly, Newark was a Level 3 airport until 2016, but that was changed in order to promote competition. With United being the biggest operator at Newark, of course it wants slot controls, so that it can dominate the market more (in fairness, the optional concerns are legitimate).
Next, we’ve known that the ATC issues at Newark exist for a variety of reasons, ranging from system failures, to being short staffed. But Kirby’s claim that 20% of controllers at Newark have just walked off the job is news to me. Like, they just outright quit, or…? Because that’s pretty rough…
Lastly, it’s not really of any consequence, but Kirby’s very strong pro-Trump posturing continues to be pretty evident, with him talking about “the difficult situation they inherited at Newark.” It’s normal for airline executives to cozy up to the current administration, but I can’t think of another airline executive who has done such a 180.
To be clear, I don’t disagree with what Kirby is saying. The Trump administration did inherit a mess when it comes to air traffic control, and one criticism I have of the Biden administration is that not enough was done to modernize the air traffic control system, which I’d consider to be incredibly important. That being said, I also don’t think Trump did enough during his first term to modernize air traffic control.
Now, it remains to be seen if the Trump administration is actually able to execute a plan for modernizing air traffic control this time around (that would be great!), or if it has more of a “concept of a plan.” 😉

Bottom line
Newark Airport has been greatly struggling with operational reliability in recent times, and this is causing United to take action. For the foreseeable future, the airline has cut roughly 10% of its schedule at the airport, and is calling on regulators to make the airport fully slot controlled. On top of that, United’s CEO claims that roughly 20% of air traffic controllers at the airport walked off the job, causing even more issues.
What do you make of this Newark Airport mess?
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 wonder what ops are being moved to IAD.
Some flights were already moved to IAD for the runway construction. But that is scheduled to end after June
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/
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.
Yet another reason why one finds it had to justify spending one’s own money on air travel in the U.S.
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!
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.
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.
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...
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.
FAA Air Traffic Controllers DO NOT walk off the job. LOL!!! They are federal unionized employees who get a fixed salary and benefits
“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!
IIRC, there was a software team working for several years on a replacement system, but they were recently fired for being redundant.
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.
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...
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.
When Kirby has meetings with the new administration, does he spit or swallow?
Brings new meaning to the label "suck up."
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.
I can’t find a list of which flights are being slashed from EWR. Does it exist anywhere?
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.
You are 100% correct.
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.
Maga is the majority.
We are in control.
"Maga is the majority.
We are in control."
LOL.
Just like the final days of WWII.
ROFL
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
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...
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.
Has anyone seen a report on which flights are being cut?
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.