The FAA on Tuesday issued an interim order reducing the flight arrival and departure rate at Newark Liberty International Airport citing construction, staffing challenges, and recent equipment issues.
Newark has been experiencing disruptions recently such as shortages of air traffic controllers, a series of outages at the air traffic control center, and construction which has led to ground delays of flights.
The interim rule will cap the number of arrivals and departures at Newark Liberty International Airport at 28 apiece per hour until construction of Runway 4-Left/22-Right is complete.
Daily construction will end on June 15 but will continue on Saturdays until the end of the year.
Outside of the construction period, 34 arrivals and departures until Oct. 25, 2025.
“Our goal is to relieve the substantial inconvenience to the traveling public from excessive flight delays due to construction, staffing challenges, and recent equipment issues, which magnify as they spread through the National Airspace System,” Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau said.
The FAA said it may change the targeted limits if it determines capacity exists to accommodate more flights without a significant increase in delays, or that further flight reductions are necessary.
The FAA has also acted by:
- Adding three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON. This will provide more speed, reliability and redundancy;
- Replacing copper telecommunications connections with updated fiberoptic technology that also have greater bandwidth and speed;
- Deploying a temporary backup system to the Philadelphia TRACON that will provide redundancy during the switch to a more reliable fiberoptic network;
- Establishing a STARS hub at the Philadelphia TRACON so that the facility does not depend on a telecommunications feed from the New York STARS hub;
- Increasing controller staffing. Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which directs aircraft in and out of Newark, has 22 fully certified controllers, 5 fully certified supervisors, and 21 controllers and supervisors in training. Ten of those 21 controllers and supervisors are receiving on-the-job training. All 10 are certified on at least one position in Area C and three are certified on multiple positions. This means they can work those positions without supervision from an instructor.
Additionally, the FAA stated that it has a healthy pipeline of controllers, with training classes filled through July 2026.
