US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he plans to reduce the number of flights at Newark Liberty International Airport over the “next several weeks.”
Duffy spoke to NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, as another air traffic control outage again grounded flights at the airport. Operations have since returned to normal, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“I hate delays, I hate cancellations,” Duffy said. “But I want you to get where you’re traveling. And if that means slowing down flights into Newark, we slow them down to make sure we can do it safely.”
In recent months, Newark has experienced a series of air traffic control equipment outages, which have raised concerns among travellers.
“There was a telecommunications issue at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace,” the FAA said in a statement about the outage on Sunday. “The FAA briefly slowed aircraft in and out of the airport while we ensured redundancies were working as designed. Operations have returned to normal.”
Communications and radar displays at the airport suffered another outage on Friday, too, lasting about 90 seconds.
Duffy said in the interview on Sunday that he is “concerned about the whole airspace” in the United States because equipment used by most airports is now outdated.
“The equipment that we use, much of it we can’t buy parts for new,” Duffy said. “We have to go on eBay and buy parts if one part goes down. You’re dealing with really old equipment. We’re dealing with copper wires, not fiber, not high-speed fiber, and so this is concerning.”
In addition to equipment problems, there is also an ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers. In 2023, a report from the Department of Transportation found that the FAA still faced staffing challenges after the pandemic forced a pause on training. The report said the FAA “lacks a plan to address” the staffing issues, which “in turn poses a risk to the continuity of air traffic operations.”
Air traffic controllers also have specific age requirements, which makes hiring more difficult. The FAA requires air traffic controllers to retire when they turn 56, and the agency is now only accepting applications from people under the age of 31.
Duffy told NBC he planned to address the shortage of air traffic controllers by extending the retirement age from 56 to 61 and by offering bonuses to incentivize them to stay in the job.
“I’m going to give them a 20% upfront bonus to stay on the job,” Duffy said. “Don’t retire. Keep serving your country.”
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