Newark Airport's Air Traffic Control Crisis: Thousands of Flights Delayed

Newark Airport Air Traffic Control Outages Cause Thousands of Flight Delays Newark International Airport experienced multiple air traffic control outages in 2024, according to testimony from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. These outages, along with a broken hotline between Washington Reagan National and the Pentagon, caused significant disruption to air travel. "There were outages in October and November as well," Secretary Duffy stated during his testimony. The April 28th system outage at a Philadelphia-area FAA facility further exacerbated the problems, leaving controllers briefly unable to communicate or track flights. The FAA admitted to only recently discovering the Pentagon hotline malfunction, which had been offline since 2022. In response to the ongoing issues, airline executives are meeting with the Department of Transportation to discuss reducing delays at Newark, which could mean cutting flights during the busy summer travel season. United Airlines executive Andrew Nocella commented, "We already cut 35 and we expect we'll have to cut a few more." Despite these challenges, Nocella assured passengers that United will maintain a nearly 100% intact global network and provide adequate notice of any flight changes. The situation underscores the urgent need for modernization of the nation's aging air traffic control system, a point emphasized by Secretary Duffy's request for tens of billions of dollars in funding.