'Incredibly Old' System Blamed for Newark Airport Delays

The weather was blamed for more than 100 flight delays and cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday, PIX11 reports—but it was the seventh day in a row of major delays, which stemmed from more persistent issues, including a loss of communications with planes last Monday.

• "Incredibly old" system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday the "incredibly old" system used to manage air traffic at the Newark airport, one of the nation's busiest, was partly to blame, CNN reports. "We use floppy disks. We use copper wires," he said. "The system that we're using is not effective to control the traffic that we have in the airspace today." Duffy said "state-of-the-art" equipment that will be the "envy of the world" will be installed across the US, but it could take up to four years.

• Loss of communication. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association says controllers " temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control" on April 28 and were "unable to see, hear, or talk to them," the New York Times reports. Authorities say the issue caused hundreds of delays and cancellations that day, with no flights taking off from or landing at Newark for around two hours.
• Staff shortage. A shortage of air traffic controllers is another major issue at the airport in Newark and others across the US, NJ.com reports. The FAA said Monday that multiple controllers at the facility that handles Newark air traffic had taken time off "to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages," the AP reports. "While we cannot quickly replace them due to this highly specialized profession, we continue to train controllers who will eventually be assigned to this busy airspace," the FAA said.

• United cuts flights. United Airlines cited the staff shortage in a Friday message to customers announcing that the airline is cutting flights from Newark. "Keep in mind, 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," CEO Robert Kirby wrote. Kirby said the airline is dropping 35 roundtrip flights per day from Newark, around 10% of the total. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA union urged other airlines to cut Newark flights until funding is secured to "provide the resources that are a decade overdue for our air traffic controllers to be able to do their jobs."
• Other issues. Management of the airspace around Newark shifted from New York to Philadelphia last summer, but the move failed to reduce delays, the New York Times reports. Many delays over the last week have stretched past five hours. Another factor: One of the airport's three runways was shut down in mid-April for repaving. It is expected to reopen in mid-June.

(More Newark airport stories.)