Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Says Newark Flights Will Be Lowered

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated he plans to cut back the variety of flights at Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport over the “subsequent a number of weeks.”

Duffy spoke to NBC Information’ “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, as one other air visitors management outage once more grounded flights on the airport. Operations have since returned to regular, the Federal Aviation Administration stated.

“I hate delays, I hate cancellations,” Duffy stated. “However I need you to get the place you are touring. And if which means slowing down flights into Newark, we gradual them down to verify we will do it safely.”

In current months, Newark has skilled a sequence of air visitors management tools outages, which have raised issues amongst travellers.

“There was a telecommunications challenge at Philadelphia TRACON Space C, which guides plane out and in of Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport airspace,” the FAA stated in a press release concerning the outage on Sunday. “The FAA briefly slowed plane out and in of the airport whereas we ensured redundancies have been working as designed. Operations have returned to regular.”

Communications and radar shows on the airport suffered one other outage on Friday, too, lasting about 90 seconds.

Duffy stated within the interview on Sunday that he’s “involved about the entire airspace” in the USA as a result of tools utilized by most airports is now outdated.

“The tools that we use, a lot of it we will not purchase components for brand new,” Duffy stated. “We’ve to go on eBay and purchase components if one half goes down. You are coping with actually outdated tools. We’re coping with copper wires, not fiber, not high-speed fiber, and so that is regarding.”

Along with tools issues, there’s additionally an ongoing scarcity of air visitors controllers. In 2023, a report from the Division of Transportation discovered that the FAA nonetheless confronted staffing challenges after the pandemic pressured a pause on coaching. The report stated the FAA “lacks a plan to handle” the staffing points, which “in flip poses a danger to the continuity of air visitors operations.”

Air visitors controllers even have particular age necessities, which makes hiring harder. The FAA requires air visitors controllers to retire once they flip 56, and the company is now solely accepting functions from folks underneath the age of 31.

Duffy instructed NBC he deliberate to handle the scarcity of air visitors controllers by extending the retirement age from 56 to 61 and by providing bonuses to incentivize them to remain within the job.

“I’ll give them a 20% upfront bonus to remain on the job,” Duffy stated. “Do not retire. Hold serving your nation.”