Air traffic controllers have been under tension for years, but a failure in the 90 -second team last week exposed how decades of personnel shortage, underestimation and mosaic solutions for those who guide the airplanes through some of the most congested air spaces in the world are affecting their trip.
The interruption also caused hundreds of flight delays, interrupting trips for thousands of travelers for days, again.
What happened?
On the afternoon of April 28, air traffic controllers in an installation in Philadelphia that are responsible for guiding airplanes and from the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey faced dark radar screens and could not talk to the airplanes for more than a minute.
The interruption lasted about 30 seconds. The airplanes took another 30 to 60 seconds to reappear in Radarscopes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The pilots for the main US airlines. They say they are especially trained to handle such interruptions.
But an interruption of even a few seconds “is an eternity for air traffic controllers,” said Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air security researcher from the National Transportation Security Board of the United States and FAA.
The incident, which was not the first time that the interruptions of the teams arrived at the facilities, it was so discordant that some have taken a free time to recover from the stress of multiple recent interruptions, “FAA said.
According to FlightTAware, more than 1,500 Newark flights were delayed last week. United Airlines, who executes a Newark center, said he was cutting 35 flights a day from his schedule to relieve tension in his operation and customers.
A Newark track has also closed for construction, which adds to interruptions.
New steps
On Wednesday, FAA said it would reinforce staff at the Philadelphia facilities and work to fix the communication lines that feed the data to the controllers there for Newark flights. He said he plans to install a temporary backup system there to “provide redundancy during the switch to a more reliable fiber optic network.”
The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, will announce an important update plan for the US Air Traffic Control System. UU. Thursday, which may require Congress to approve billions of millions in additional funds.
“We have computers, and it is not a joke, today in 2025, which are based on Windows 95 and disks,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers, in an interview in March.
FAA last year said that the average age of its towers is 40 and that most radar systems approach 40 years. “Aging facilities add risk to the system, including the risk of service interruptions,” he said.
The accident draws urgency
The incident of April 28 and the previous interruptions did not cause any accident, but the failures increased more concerns about an outdated system and the chronic shortage of air traffic controllers, particularly in the airspace occupied around New York City.
American air traffic controllers drive around 45,000 flights per day in general, according to FAA.
The urgency of solving persistent problems reached a new level after a Black Hawk army helicopter collided with a regional American Airlines plane on January 29, killing the 67 people aboard the plane. It was the most deadly plane crash in the United States since 2001.
“A fatal accident was needed in the airline in the air to get everyone’s attention,” Guzzetti said.
Why is Newark that problem?
Newark is already dealing with space limitations to begin with.
He handled around 414,000 flights last year, 11% less than the John F. Kennedy International Airport, in Queens, New York, according to data from its operator, the New York Port Authority and New Jersey. But Newark is approximately half the size of JFK.
Technological problems and personnel deficits have been especially difficult for Newark in recent days. Last year, FAA moved to the controllers that manage Newark from an installation in Long Island, New York, where the airplanes are also sequenced towards and from the Laguardia and JFK airport in Queens, to a remote station in Philadelphia. The movement was intended to relieve congestion and tension in Long Island facilities, but there are still problems.
The shortage of air traffic personnel has annoying airline executives that are eager to capitalize on strong demand, but are limited and face high costs due to lack of controllers.
“Keep in mind that this private air traffic control has had little staff for years and without these controllers, it is now clear, and the FAA tells us, that Newark airport cannot handle the amount of airplanes that are scheduled to operate there in the coming weeks and months,” said United Kirby CEO, Scott Kirby, to customers on Friday, announcing programming cuts.
Before April 26, four flights were canceled a day in Newark in April, on average, but that increased to 39 per day until Monday, according to the Cirium aviation analysis firm. About 80% of flights were scheduled in April before that date, but they fell to 63%, “well below the industry standards,” Cirium said.
Decelerating
Duffy has said that air trips are safe. After a visit to the Philadelphia facilities last week, he said that FAA will decrease, if it does not stop, the arrivals completely if there is a shortage of air traffic controllers.
The United CEO, Kirby, told employees in a memorandum on Wednesday to fly to and from Newark is safe. He said that carrier’s pilots have thousands of hours of experience and training in procedures to “continue to restore communication if controllers lose radio contact to navigate the plane safely to their destination.”
Airlines have sought capacity limits to help congestion, and the last interruption was no exception.
“United has been urging the United States government for * years * to use its authority to effectively limit the number of flights to what the airport can handle in a realistically,” Kirby said in a note to employees on Friday. “The past failure of making those changes had led to the circumstances that joined and, most importantly, our clients now face.”
In 2016, FAA facilitated flight restrictions at the airport and Kirby said FAA should return to previous rules.
“It’s time to treat EWR as the crown jewel it is,” he told the employees on Wednesday, using the airport code. “We will continue working closely with FAA and [Transportation Department] To fix EWR once and for all and deliver to the country the first -class air traffic system it deserves. ”
Add air traffic controlle
The United States has about 10,800 air traffic controlle, well below its total staff in 3,000, according to the District Union, NATCA.
“In the last eight years, we have had 146,000 applicants and we have hired 7,905 of them,” said Chris Wilbanks, vice president of mission support in the FAA that is in charge of the hiring and training of the controller, in the interview in March. “Less than 10% of people who request work really reach the [Oklahoma training] Academia and then graduate to go to the field. “
In the previous fiscal year, the objective of the FAA was to hire 1,800 controllers.
“We will lose 35% of them at the Academy. We will lose another 20% once they reach the field, in job training. Therefore, it did not reduce 1,800 controllers,” said Wilbanks.
The exhausting work requires that air traffic drivers retire at age 56, and academy applicants cannot be more than 30 years old. Many are forced to work in the six -day work weeks due to shortage.
Duffy has recently moved to increase financial incentives, such as the highest payment for air traffic drivers. The initial payment is around $ 45,000, said the Daniels union, although the average payment of an US air traffic controller is $ 144,580 per year, according to the United States Department of Labor.
