NEWARK (1010 WINS) – Travel disruptions at Newark Airport stretched into another week with hundreds of delays and cancellations Monday, prompting Sen. Chuck Schumer to call for an investigation into the travel chaos amid a report that air traffic control lost communication with aircraft for 90 seconds last week.
As of Monday afternoon, there were 286 delays and 151 cancellations, according to FlightAware. The FAA said staffing issues and weather were delaying some arriving flights by 4 hours, while departures delays were roughly an hour. On Sunday, there were more than 430 delays and 140 cancellations.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that air traffic controllers lost radar and radio communication last week, leaving them "unable to see, hear, or talk to" aircraft for 90 seconds. Following the incident, multiple employees were placed on trauma leave. That caused a reduction in staffing that led to a week of flight disruptions at the airport, according to the Bloomberg story, details of which were previously unreported.
In a statement, the FAA said some air traffic controllers took time off "to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages." The agency said it "cannot quickly replace them due to this highly specialized profession" but that it's training controllers.
At a news conference Monday that preceded the Bloomberg report, Schumer said there should be a full inspector general investigation into what has happened at the airport to avoid the problem spiraling out of control.
"To say that there is just minor turbulence at Newark Airport and the FAA, that would be the understatement of the year. We're here because the FAA is really a mess. This mess needs a real forensic look, a deep look into it," Schumer said.
"We have ATC folks giving warnings," the senator said. "We have a 1990 technology being used in 2025. And we have safety issues plain and simple."
Gov. Phil Murphy called the delays “completely and utterly unacceptable" in a post on X, and said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is “committed” to hiring more air traffic controllers.
Officials have publicly cited a number of issues for the flight disruptions. There’s an air traffic controller shortage; a runway has been shut down until at least June for rehabilitation work; and FAA equipment used to manage airplanes has failed.
Travelers have complained of hours-long delays and being stuck on the tarmac or in holding patterns in the sky. The situation is so dire at the airport that officials have doubted its ability to handle all the flights in the weeks ahead.
United Airlines said an "FAA equipment malfunction caused a significant disruption" at the airport Monday afternoon
United Airlines recently cut 35 daily flights from its Newark schedule, faulting the FAA's alleged failure to address “long-simmering” challenges related to the air-traffic control system.
United CEO Scott Kirby said the tech used to manage planes at the airport failed more than once in recent days. The flight delays, cancellations and diversions the equipment problems caused were compounded when more than one-fifth of Newark's traffic controllers “walked off the job,” he said.
"This particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’s now clear — and the FAA tells us — that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead," Kirby wrote in a letter to customers on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.