Newark Liberty Airport from New Jersey, one of the three main airports in the service of New York, had only three air controllers in service on Monday, which was below the 14 requirements of air regulators and forced to delay flights arriving until seven.
The deficit of the air traffic controller, reported for the first time by the New York Times, occurs in the middle of an increasing number of problems for the HUB. In just over a week, Newark suffered three communication breakdowns, making the control tower unable to follow or communicate with planes up to 90 seconds.
The most recent failure on Sunday morning came while government officials and airlines have made several efforts to reassure passengers from airlines who fly outside the airport is safe.
But Monday evening, during the quarter from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., the group that manages Newark air traffic from Philadelphia operated with one or two fully certified controllers, said the point of sale – much less than the 14 controllers agreed between the Union of Controllers and the air traffic control networks.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said on Monday that a new software update had prevented the problems of the day before to multiply after aviation officials have published a 45 -minute stop.
In a press release, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that it “had briefly slowed down planes inside and outside the airport while we said that the layoffs operated as designed.
“Operations have returned to normal.”
This came after Duffy announced its intention to reduce the number of flights arriving from Newark during the “next weeks” and would meet the main carriers of the airport to discuss problems. Flight discounts, he said, target the hours when international flights arrive.
Duffy said he wanted to increase the compulsory retirement age for air traffic controllers from 56 to 61, to compensate for a shortage of around 3,000 air controllers. After Newark’s first failure on April 28, the union representing air traffic controllers said several members had been placed on trauma leave.
“Although we cannot replace them quickly due to this highly specialized profession, we continue to train controllers who will ultimately be assigned to this very busy airspace,” FAA said earlier in May.
Newark’s problems seem to be linked to copper wiring in zone C of Philadelphia Tracon C, which guides planes in and outside Newark airspace. Tracon is an acronym for the terminal radar approach control installation.
The FAA has installed new fiber optic lines at Newark airport and Kennedy and Laguardia airports in New York to replace copper wires. But the plan is to spend the following two weeks to test these new lines before moving on to them.
Duffy recently presented an extensive plan to replace the country’s obsolete air traffic control system, including 4,600 new high -speed data connections and replacing 618 radars.
He sought to blame the problems on the failures of the Biden administration which supervised the movement of air traffic control for the control of the Air Island airspace in Philadelphia which, according to him, had been “failed”.
A spokesperson for Pete Buttigieg, the transport secretary of the presidency of Joe Biden, said that Duffy “had to spend more time doing what the American people pay him – solving problems – and less time blame the others.”
But the problems create anxiety for travelers. Hundreds of flights were delayed on Sunday at Hartsfield-Jackson of Atlanta due to a problem of track equipment. At the end of January in Washington DC, an American Airlines from Wichita collided with a military helicopter, killing 67. The fatal accident was attributed to the failure of the helicopter pilot to the failure of air traffic controllers.
Despite Newark’s problems, both technical and in terms of the number of available air traffic controllers, those responsible are trying to stifle the concerns of the clients of airlines.
“This is problematic, but our commitment is still security,” said Duffy on Monday. “We will make sure that if you fly, you will fly safely. And if we reduce the number of flights to Newark, we don’t do it to bother people. We don’t do it to delay people’s trips. What we do is guarantee security. ”
In addition, Newark mayor Ras Baraka told MSNBC on Sunday that the disadvantage of flight delays and cancellations was compensated by an accent on security.
“I would be worried if they did not delay and do not cancel theft, given the number of disturbances we see,” said Baraka. He added that he was happy that the Trump administration “removed” from claiming that diversity initiatives were to blame for problems and “understand the structural problems that exist there, the fact that we need more air controllers”.
“There are too many planes in our airspace, frankly,” added Baraka. “We have to fill a gap between the planes that leave and arrive at the airport. We have to fly fewer planes until we control this thing. The fact that there are delays and cancellations is because they do that day. ”
