Latest news with #NewarkLiberty
Al Arabiya
20-06-2025
- General
- Al Arabiya
Air traffic controllers in Florida briefly lost radar after fiber optic line was cut
Air traffic controllers in Florida briefly lost their radar Friday after a fiber optic line was cut, but the outage didn't lead to disruptions like what happened after similar outages around the Newark, New Jersey, airport this spring. Controllers were able to continue directing planes across five states in the Southeast because a backup system kicked in as designed. The Federal Aviation Administration said no flights were disrupted. The FAA said the radar center in Jacksonville, Florida, continued operating, but on alert status because its primary communication line went down. A contractor was working on repairing the severed fiber line Friday afternoon. Authorities didn't specify what caused the severed fiber line or where it happened. The FAA didn't say exactly how long the radar was offline, but when air traffic controllers in a different facility in Philadelphia lost radar twice this spring, it took 90 seconds for their systems to reboot after the system went down. Those incidents led to major disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey because five controllers went on trauma leave after those outages, and that facility in Philadelphia directs planes in and out of the airport. Hundreds of flights had to be canceled in Newark because the remaining controllers couldn't safely handle every flight on the schedule. Operations at that airport have since improved significantly. An FAA spokesperson said there was no loss of critical air traffic service in Jacksonville because the backup system kicked in. That center is responsible for planes flying across roughly 160,000 square miles of airspace across most of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The problems in Newark were blamed on the failure of aging copper wires that much of the nation's air traffic control system still relies on. Transportation officials said the Newark problems demonstrated the need for a multi-million-dollar overhaul of the system that they are lobbying Congress to approve.
New York Times
16-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
Equipment Problems Vexed Newark Airport Controllers for Years
Earlier this year, air traffic controllers working a graveyard shift for Newark Liberty International Airport noticed a strange phenomenon. Phantom aircraft were populating one of their radar screens. 'False targets' kept showing up in one airspace map 'throughout the night,' one employee recounted in an incident report. Controllers for Newark have also experienced a spate of unnerving equipment outages this year. In one instance, the radio feed connecting pilots with the controllers was marred with static. When controllers tried to use a backup line, they found that it wasn't working at all. On another occasion, automatic alerts attached to a weather-detection system that flagged gusty and sometimes dangerous conditions known as 'wind shear' were not working. These incidents, which have not been previously reported and were discovered in a review of government documents by The New York Times, occurred over the months before and weeks after a massive outage took down both radar scopes and radio contact with pilots simultaneously on April 28 — scaring controllers, causing delays, canceling flights and frustrating the flying public. The records reviewed by The Times reveal previously unknown glitches this year that point to a more profound problem with air-traffic control technology in the Philadelphia tower that handles much of the traffic for Newark than even the outage in April and others in May have suggested. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Yahoo
FAA Announces Final Decision on Newark Liberty International Airport
earlier this week, the Federal Aviation Administration revealed a construction project on one of Newark Liberty International Airport's three main runways was completed two weeks ahead of schedule. "The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has completed construction of Runway 4-Left/22-Right at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). This runway will only be open for departures, while FAA flight crews ensure the runway's navigational aids are tested, calibrated and safe to use for arrivals. This is standard protocol to ensure a runway is safe to use for pilots and the flying public," the FAA said in a statement. "The airport will continue to operate with a maximum arrival rate of 28 aircraft an hour until those checks are complete. After that, the airport's maximum arrival rate will be 34 aircraft an hour." While travelers hoped the limited travel rate would be lifted at some point during the 2025 calendar year, they'll have to wait a bit longer. On June 6, the FAA announced the limited rate of arrivals and departures at Newark Liberty International Airport will continue through December 31, 2025. The confirmed reduced rates will maintain safety while alleviating excessive flight delays at the airport due to staffing and equipment challenges. The early completion of runway construction at the airport that added to the delays will also contribute to a more efficient operation," the FAA said in a statement. The order limits arrivals and departures to 28 each per hour during airport construction on weekends from September 1 through December 31, 2025. During the rest of the time, arrivals and departures the order calls for the limits not to exceed 34 each per hour through October 25, 2025. The transportation authority announced five specific fixes for its communication issues including adding three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based hubs and the Philadelphia Announces Final Decision on Newark Liberty International Airport first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 7, 2025
Travel Weekly
02-06-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Repaired runway reopens ahead of schedule at Newark Liberty
Newark Liberty Airport's runway 4L-22R has reopened for business nearly two weeks ahead of schedule, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport. The runway was shut down April 15 for repairs, bringing Newark's options down to just two runways and contributing to a host of delays and problems. The reduced capacity exacerbated a well-publicized communication blackout in late April at Newark's air traffic control facility near Philadelphia, which led to a cascade of delays and cancellations. To manage traffic at Newark, United Airlines, which is Newark's primary airline, voluntarily cut back 35 flights a day, and the FAA later stepped in to cap operations at Newark at 56 hourly arrivals and departures. But in the meantime, the Port Authority said, it brought in additional crews, expanded shifts and enabled construction to take place 24/7 to bring the runway back online faster than anticipated. Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton said that although the runway repair work had a scheduled completion date of June 15, "as other issues have arisen related to Newark Liberty's capacity, the Port Authority took on the challenge to speed up construction." DOT secretary Sean Duffy praised the timeline, saying that it "puts us on a path to further reducing congestion." The $128 million project included milling and paving the runway surface, updating lighting, improving airfield signs with LED lighting, installing new underground electrical infrastructure and improving drainage, the Port Authority said. United CEO: FAA flight caps at Newark helped In an interview with journalist Kate Linebaugh the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything event last week, United CEO Scott Kirby said that with the FAA managing takeoff and landing capacity, Newark would likely be "the most reliable" of the New York airports this summer. "We had the best weekend in history for reliability at Newark over the Memorial Day holiday," he said. "It's likely going to be the most reliable; you have highest on-time performance of any of the New York-area airports this summer because of the changes at the FAA." And, he added, "because we lost a lot of bookings ... there's more seats available, it's going to be the cheapest it's probably ever going to be in history. I don't really like that, but you ought to book, and it's going to be the least crowded." Kirby said that once the runway construction was completed United could return some of its cut capacity to Newark, from 280 daily flights up to 380 -- but still down from about 440 last year. "I think we'll have it permanently," Kirby said of the FAA traffic management. "That's going to fix Newark. That's the one thing — it's the only thing that we needed, and it's getting done."
The Independent
28-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Air traffic control system must be improved to prevent problems like Newark airport, officials say
The problems that disrupted flights at New Jersey 's largest airport this spring could be repeated anywhere across the country, so Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is trying to sell Congress on his plan to overhaul the nation's air traffic control system that will cost 'tens of billions.' Duffy provided an update Wednesday on the repairs and staffing efforts that are underway to help eliminate the problems affecting Newark Liberty International Airport, which has been running more smoothly in the past few weeks since the airlines started to cut the number of flights they operate there. And Duffy emphasized that the Newark radar outages and air traffic control shortage are a prime example of why the antiquated system needs to be improved. 'I'm concerned that we could have more Newarks. And again, why it's so important that we actually begin this build with the money that Congress is going to send us,' he said. Duffy still wouldn't give a price tag of his expansive overhaul of the air traffic control system that he said is clearly needed after the deadly midair collision over Washington, D.C., in January that killed 67 people and all the problems affecting Newark this spring. But he said the $12.5 billion the House included President Donald Trump 's massive bill won't be enough because 'it's going to be tens of billions of dollars.' Duffy has been meeting privately with lawmakers since he unveiled the plan. But he said he wants to let Congress 'do the dance the way the Congress dances' to develop a plan to pay for the program. Problems ease at Newark airport The problems that led to hundreds of cancellations and delays at Newark do seem to have improved since the Federal Aviation Administration limited the number of flights at the airport so they could handle it with the number of controllers available. The already short-staffed air traffic control facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark lost five controllers to trauma leave after the first radar and communications outage on April 28 and another one is out on medical leave. That left the facility with only 16 certified controllers and five supervisors. But Duffy said there are another 16 experienced controllers in training that he hopes will start to get certified between now and October. That is an example of how the FAA remains about 3,000 short on the number of air traffic controllers it wants, so Duffy has also tried to speed up the hiring and training process while offering incentives to keep experienced controllers from retiring early. The FAA has said that it expects to be able to bump up the number of flights daily in Newark to 34 arrivals and 34 departures once a runway construction project is completed in mid-June. That is also about the time that some of the controllers on a 45-day trauma leave might be scheduled to return. The FAA will revisit the limits in October because it hopes to have more controllers trained by then. The government also upgraded the software at the air traffic control facility after a second radar outage on May 9. That helped prevent a repeat problem on May 11. FAA addresses telecommunications problems The FAA is also working on the telecommunications problems. Duffy said Verizon worked quickly to install a new fiber optic line between Philadelphia and New York over the past month, but the FAA wants to thoroughly test it out before switching over, so that likely won't be available until July. After that, the FAA plans to also improve the lines between New York and the Newark airport because some of them are still copper wires. 'Clearly something wasn't going right when we experienced these outages,' acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau said. 'Right now, part of this effort, part of this initiative, is to ensure we're acting with decisiveness, right — with focus — to make sure the lines get in, to make sure those redundancies are put in, to make sure the controllers have the tools they need to make the system safe, to operate safely.' In the meantime, Duffy said it would be a good idea for pilots to brush up on their procedures of how to handle an outage because they can happen. In addition to the problems in Newark, controllers in Denver lost their radios for a couple minutes earlier this month. Duffy said there were also several other outages affecting Newark last year that didn't get public attention. 'We have to look at the real world around us and some of the issues that come up and make sure we are brushed up and ready to go, should there be a brief outage," Duffy said. "And again, that there's a lot of redundancy and a lot of procedures that keep people safe should this happen.'
