SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – After multiple outages at Newark Airport in New Jersey over recent weeks, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday that the flight and departure rates at the airport would be reduced.
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Per the FAA, the interim order limits the number of arrivals and departures to 28 each until construction of Runway 4-Left/22-Right is complete. Daily construction is expected to end June 15 and to continue on Saturdays until the end of the year. Outside of construction, the order limits arrivals and departures to 34 each until Oct. 25.
“Our goal is to relieve the substantial inconvenience to the traveling public from excessive flight delays due to construction, staffing challenges, and recent equipment issues, which magnify as they spread through the National Airspace System,” said Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau of the limits.
This week, Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and strategist with atmosphere research group, joined Audacy to discuss what exactly has been going on at Newark following its fourth recent system outage. Even though the outage lasted for mere seconds, that’s enough to have an impact.
“I know it sounds like it’s nothing, but the issue is that if the controllers lose the screen for even a second or two, they don’t know where the airplanes are,” Harteveldt explained to KCBS Radio. “Now, the good news is there are redundancies. They were in voice contact with airplanes, and so they could at least give commands to the aircraft themselves. But even when you’re down for two seconds, if the redundant systems don’t kick in… it’s traumatic… for the controllers and after the first incident… six controllers were so traumatized that they took a leave of absence.”
Staffing shortages were already a factor leading up to the outage chaos at Newark.
“It’s really because of these FAA staffing shortages, but also the fact that one of Newark’s two primary runways is under construction,” Harteveldt said. “The good news is that construction project should be completed by June 15, so just a couple of weeks from now, but the technology and staffing issues at the airport and the Philadelphia Control Center are ongoing and they’re a real concern.”
According to CBS News, the FAA is investigating the outage, which lasted for two seconds at around 11:35 a.m. Monday. Recent incidents began with an April 28 outage, followed by a 90-second outage on May 9 and another outage on May 11.
These disruptions also have a reverberating impact. Harteveldt explained that airlines work in a “hub and spoke” network in the U.S. So, for example, the outage at Newark would impact United Airlines, since it is the largest airline there. It would also impact San Francisco’s airport, another United hub.
Additionally, other similar incidents have been reported at other airports, including a recent incident in Denver. Harteveldt said that some of the other incidents were also linked to staffing issues.
“The problems aren’t isolated to Newark,” he said. “It’s just that unfortunately we’ve had a series of problems affecting the Philadelphia Traffic Control Center and those have been affecting Newark and look the New York metro area is the largest aviation market in the country. So, if Newark sneezes the rest of us have to grab Kleenex.”
Despite the issues, Harteveldt said he feels safe flying out of Newark.
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