In a move that aims to streamline travel in and out of beleaguered Newark Liberty International Airport — and one that certainly will have business travelers searching for more reliable options — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the federal government will look to reduce the number of flights in and out of the airport.
The announcement made Sunday during his appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” comes less than a week after United Airlines — the airport’s largest carrier — announced it will temporarily cut back approximately three dozen flights.
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All of this is being done in an effort to reduce the gridlock at the airport that has made multi-hour delays the norm. But it only addresses one of the issues.
The biggest is the outdated technology that is causing major problems, including an approximately 45-minute ground halt on Sunday after an outage impacted communications and radar display at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control center known as TRACON, which manages air traffic control in the airspace surrounding the Newark airport.
As for the reduced flights: Duffy said the number of flight cutbacks would fluctuate by time of day with most targeting afternoon hours when international arrivals make the airport busier — and that they will come in the “next several weeks.”
“We want to have a number of flights that if you book your flight, you know it’s going to fly, right?” he said. “That is the priority. So, you don’t get to the airport, wait four hours, and then get delayed.”
Adjusting the number of flights allowed to be scheduled for Newark has long been an issue. Simply put, the FAA allowed the airport to routinely schedule more flights than the airport could handle — causing daily delays.
While the number of flights can be adjusted quickly, finding more air traffic controllers — they are said to be short 3,000 workers — is more difficult.
Duffy said Sunday that he wants to raise the mandatory retirement age for air traffic controllers from 56 to 61 and to give air traffic controllers a 20% upfront bonus to stay on the job.
Will it work? Even Duffy is skeptical.
“These are not overnight fixes,” Duffy said. “But as we go up — one, two years, older guys on the job, younger guys coming in, men and women — we can make up that 3,000-person difference.”
