More delays at Newark Airport due to air traffic controller staffing issues

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY (WABC) — Another day, and more delays at Newark International Airport.

For a second straight day, an air traffic controller shortage caused backups at the New Jersey airport — at one point leading to a brief pause in arrivals Tuesday afternoon.

“The FAA briefly paused arrivals into Newark Liberty International Airport this afternoon due to air traffic controller staffing issues at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (N90),” the FAA said in a statement.

But there was some good news for travelers — at least for Tuesday. More air traffic controllers were found to staff the Newark sector, so the ground delay that was expected to go into effect at 5 p.m., was lifted, although there were still scattered delays in the evening.

Whether or not the staffing issues will continue to cause problems Wednesday and beyond during a very busy holiday travel week is unclear.

The issues on Tuesday come after the FAA warned airlines and pilots to expect departure delays and airborne holding for up to two hours on Monday due to the staffing shortage.

The controllers all work at the New York ATC center that handles Newark Airport flights, not the control tower. The building is located on Long Island and currently manages airspace throughout the region.

The FAA wants to relocate the controllers who handle New Jersey/New York airspace to a similar facility in Philadelphia on July 28. They say it’s because of years of staffing levels below the national average at N90 that they want to move management of the airspace to Philadelphia, where they say “trainees have a history of succeeding.”

“N90’s air traffic controller staffing levels have long been an outlier, remaining well below the national average for many years despite numerous incentives and hiring campaigns,” the FAA said in a statement. “The facility is currently staffed at 59 percent of the target level, and trainees who go to N90 have only a 25 percent training success rate, the lowest of any facility in the nation.”

They say the airspace transfer will improve efficiency for the millions of passengers who travel through the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area. They say it will also enable the FAA to train more air traffic controllers and speed up implementation of “modernization programs.”

The controllers, however, do not want to move.

NewsCopter 7’s John Del Giorno offers advice to get ahead of delays.

“The first tip is to travel early in the day. Take the first flight of the day if possible. That’s because more than 60 percent of airline delays are caused by weather. In the summertime, that’s mostly thunderstorms and those storms form later in the afternoon, generally speaking. So if you travel early in the morning, odds are that you’ll get out before any bad weather forms,” Del Giorno said.

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