Weekend woes at Newark Liberty Airport
Travellers passing through Newark Liberty International Airport over Memorial Day weekend have been subjected to numerous delays and cancellations as new temporary FAA restrictions came into effect on Friday 23 May.
On 23 May, FlightAware.com noted a total of 282 delays and eight cancellations from Newark, rising to 389 delays and 14 cancellations on Saturday. This dropped marginally to 215 total delays and a further eight cancellations on Sunday.
The latest in an ongoing series of issues affecting punctuality at Newark Liberty International Airport, Friday’s figures coincided with the implementation of new temporary restrictions on flight activity; limiting hourly arrivals and departures to 28 apiece. This, said the FAA, was necessary to alleviate delays exacerbated by a combination of ongoing construction activity, staffing shortfalls and control centre complications. With mid-week work on runway 4L/22R expected to be completed by the middle of June, the airport expects to up its restriction to 34 hourly arrivals and departures until 25 October.
On 20 May, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced it expected nearly 2.1 million passengers to travel through JFK, Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia and New York-Stewart International airports over the long weekend. Unlike the other airports listed, however, specific advice urged travellers passing through Newark to “review their flight status before departing for the airport,” offering links to “information on delays and cancellations”.
This ‘perfect storm’ of problems has been brewing for some time, with the regulator writing on 7 May that it has “been slowing arrivals and departures at [the airport] due to runway construction at Newark and staffing and technology issues at Philadelphia TRACON, which guides aircraft in and out of the airport”. At the beginning of the month, Newark acknowledged that its flights “continue to be disrupted due to FAA staffing shortages,” with delays averaging four hours (but as high as seven). Shortly after, United Airlines also cancelled 35 roundtrip services a day, noting there was “no other way to resolve the near-term structural FAA staffing issues”.
