Equipment issue at Newark airport causes FAA to issue brief ground stop
NEWARK, New Jersey (WABC) -- Travel woes continued at Newark Liberty International Airport over the weekend after the Federal Aviation Administration issued another ground stop following an equipment issue on Sunday morning.
According to the FAA, a telecommunications issue at the Philadelphia TRACON (terminal radar approach control) Area C facility, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark, caused the agency to issue the 45-minute ground stop.
"The FAA briefly slowed aircraft in and out of the airport while we ensured redundancies were working as designed," the FAA said in its statement. "Operations have returned to normal, get real-time updates at www.fly.faa.gov."
On Sunday afternoon, the FAA released updated information, saying an audio issue, not an outage, prompted the ground stop at Newark. The agency said there were popping sounds on an unspecified number of radio frequencies. While air traffic controllers were able to communicate with aircraft, the radio system was not working correctly, prompting the switch to a backup system, the FAA said.
As of 9 p.m., there have been nearly 260 flights delayed and 86 flights cancelled on Sunday, according to FlightAware.
Sunday's equipment issue comes after radar screens briefly went black at the airport early Friday morning.
Air traffic controllers on Friday could be heard telling a FedEx plane that their screens went dark and then asked them to tell their company to put pressure on to get the problem fixed. In another transmission, the controller is heard telling a private jet arriving from Cyprus that they just had a brief radar outage and to stay at or above 3,000 feet in case they can't get in touch during their descent.
ALSO READ: Radar went black for air traffic controllers at Newark airport again
Friday's outage was the third time in two weeks that radars failed at the facility in Philadelphia where controllers manage the airspace in and around Newark.
The week prior, an outage at Newark caused ATC computer screens to go dark for roughly 60 to 90 seconds and prevented controllers from talking to aircraft during that time, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the incident. As a result, the FAA briefly halted all departures to the airport.
Following the outage, several controllers went on medical leave, calling the experience a traumatic event. The controllers are entitled to at least 45 days away from the job and must be evaluated by a doctor before they can return to work.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of the Newark Liberty International Airport for the "next several weeks," as New Jersey's largest airport struggles with radar outages and numerous flight delays and cancellations due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Duffy said he will convene a meeting with all the airlines flying out of Newark this week to determine the reduction, adding that it will fluctuate, with a larger reduction coming in the afternoons when international flight arrivals make the airport busier.
"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."
There has been an average of 34 arrival cancellations per day since mid-April at Newark, according to the FAA, with the number of delays increasing throughout the day from an average of five in the mornings to 16 by the evening. They tend to last 85 to 137 minutes on average.
The Trump administration proposed a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the U.S. air traffic control system Thursday that includes six new air traffic control centers and technology and communications upgrades at all of the nation's air traffic facilities over the next three or four years.
ALSO READ: Duffy vows to overhaul ATC system, fix problems at Newark Airport
Duffy said Sunday that he also plans to raise the mandatory retirement age for air traffic controllers from 56 to 61, as he tries to navigate a shortage of about 3,000 people in that specialized position.
He plans to give those air traffic controllers a 20% upfront bonus to stay on the job. However, he says many air traffic controllers choose to retire after 25 years of service, which means many retire around the age of 50.
"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."
Adding more air traffic controllers is in contrast to a top priority of the Trump administration - slashing jobs in nearly all other federal agencies. However, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that Duffy deserves credit for putting "caution tape" around FAA safety functions and separating those personnel from DOGE cost-cutting.
Kirby said United has already reduced its schedule at Newark, and will meet with Duffy later this week. He expects a deeper cut in capacity to last until June 15 when construction to one of Newark's runways is expected to be complete, though he thinks some reductions will last throughout the summer.
"We have fewer flights, but we keep everything safe, and we get the airplane safely on the ground," Kirby said. "Safety is number one, and so I'm not worried about safety. I am worried about customer delays and impacts."
ABC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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