Newark Delays Persist as Union Official Says Controllers Briefly Lost Contact With Planes

Air traffic controllers temporarily lost communication with airplanes at Newark Liberty International Airport last week, according to the workers union, a revelation that occurred when travel interruptions extended to a second week.

Galen Munroe, a Union spokesman, the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers, said that on April 28, the controllers in an air traffic control center of Philadelphia that are responsible for separating and sequencing “temporary Craft planes, and outside the Newark airport and temporarily lost,” they could not see, hear or talk to them. “

He did not say how much the interruption lasted, but Bloomberg reported that it was 90 seconds.

The breakdown of the communication led hundreds of delays and cancellations and three boxes of flight deviations that day, Chordination to Aidan O’Donnell, general manager of the New Jersey airports in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He added that for two hours that afternoon, no flight came out or landed in Newark.

As a result of the loss of communication, Munroe said, the controllers took absences under a law that allows federal workers who are physically integrated or experience a traumatic event at work to leave work. No “they left work” as reported by the media, “Munroe said in a statement.

The Federal Aviation Administration recognized in a statement on Monday that “our outdated air traffic control system is affecting our workforce.” He said he was working to ensure that the telecommunications team is more reliable in the New York area.

“Frequent equipment and telecommunications interruptions can be stressful for controllers,” said FAA.

Some of the controllers in Philadelphia that help coordinate arrivals and outputs in Newark “have tasks that recover to recover from the stress of multiple recent interruptions,” added the agency. “While we cannot replace them quickly due to this highly specialized professional, we must continually train the controllers that will be possible to use this occupied airspace.”

The dissemination occurs when one of the three Newark tracks has been closed for construction and when air traffic control centers throughout the country have experienced personnel shortage. United said last week that he was forced to cut 35 round trip flights from his Newark schedule.

The low clouds on Monday led FAA to the exits of the plans of the plans that go to Newark, which led to delays averaging four hours and exacerbating travel chaos in one of the most busy airports in the country. More than 200 flights inside and outside Newark had been delayed on Monday morning, according to the FlightTAware monitoring site.

In the main terminal of United in Newark on Monday, travelers whose flights had been canceled expressed their frustration with being stopped to customer service agents online.

Phyllis Dotzen Rod said he hoped to fly to Myrtle Beach, SC, after visiting his son in Manhattan, but his flight was canceled after arriving at the airport. His son was going to Asia and he wasn’t sure what to do, he said.

“I am stressed at this time,” said Mrs. Dotzen Rod while waiting in the row at an aid table in terminal C that closed just when she came to the front of the line. “Now I don’t know where to go.”

In addition to his frustration, he said, he gave a leg for a meal and a hotel, but he could not discover how to make him appear on his phone.

Judith Davis, whose flight home to Columbus, Ohio, was canceled for bad weather, said she had waited 45 minutes on the phone for a customer service agent. I was among the travelers desperately looking for alternative flights at terminal C on Monday.

“I am very annoying; I need to return today,” said Davis, expressing frustration with the lack of help in the terminal. “You are a son or leave you alone to try to solve it.”

Senator Chuck Schumer, from New York, asked the inspector general to investigate the problems in Newark on Monday, saying that a “real forensic look” was needed on security problems and that technology was needed overcome.

“To say that there is a minor turbulence at Newark airport and FAA that would be the underestimation of the year,” said Schumer, the minority leader, at a press conference. “We are here because FAA is really a disaster.”

He said that Newark problems could be a “omen, if problems like these are not solved.” He blamed the poor management of FAA and the cuts imposed by the Trump administration for personnel problems, and warned that the other airports of the nation could experience similar problems if they are not addressed.

The New York Port Authority and New Jersey, which operates Newark airport, as well as Kennedy International and Laguardia airports in New York, in a statement on Monday that the scarcity of personnel in the air traffic control centers was to blame.

“The Port Authority has invested billions to modernize Newark Liberty, but those improvements they defend in a federal totally modern and modern air traffic system,” said the Port Authority. “We are continuously to urge FAA to address scarcity and accelerate the technological updates that continue to cause delays in the most busy air corridor in the nation.”

In a statement on Friday, Scott Kirby, Executive Director of United Airlines, the largest carrier of Newark, attributed the recent flight cancellations to equipment failures and said that 20 percent of air traffic controllers at the airport had “left work.”

As a result, he added, there were “deviated flight boxes, hundreds of flights and retarded and canceled sausages or all, thousands of customs with interrupted travel plans.”

About 68 percent of the more than 3,300 scheduled outings on Newark this week were sold by United, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm.

Paul Rinaldi, former president of the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers who is now a senior vice president of Operations and Safety on Airlines For America, a trade organization, said that systems controllers trust have not been working “at an optimal level.”

“The problem is the lack of confidence on the part of the controllers in the systems due to the interruptions that have had the last eight months or so,” he said.

It was not clear when delays would be clarified, and it is likely that bad weather contributes to headaches for travelers in Newark, as well as in the other airports of the metropolitan area.

A Delta spokesman said the airline had canceled three regional round trips in Newark due to air traffic contracts. The passengers on those flights were automatically reserved on flights at Laguardia and Kennedy airports.

But those airports were also affected by the weather. Incoming and outgoing flights in Laguardia were experiencing delays or approximately one hour due to low clouds.

Clouds and rain can limit flights inside and outside the region halfway. The rain can increase the intensity on Monday, with some possible thunderstorms. The possibility that the showers remain on Wednesday.

Judson Jones and Niraj Chokshi Contributed reports.