Federal officials will continue to limit the number of flights arriving and departing from New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) through the end of 2025.
The FAA will keep the current caps in place to maintain safety and “continue easing delays to the traveling public,” amid ongoing challenges with air traffic control equipment and staffing, the agency said on Friday, June 6.
According to the new order, which went into effect on Friday, the airport will be limited to 34 arrivals and 34 departures per hour through October 25. On weekends from September 1 through December 31, Newark will be limited to just 28 arrivals and 28 departures to accommodate scheduled airport construction.
The airport recently wrapped up a major construction project on its Runway 4-Left/22-Right ahead of schedule, which is expected to help improve flight operations. In fact, the completion of the runway project is what allowed the FAA to raise Newark’s hourly caps to 34 departures and arrivals per hour.
Newark has been facing operational issues since late April, when vital air traffic control equipment suddenly went offline, preventing controllers from seeing or speaking to aircraft approaching the facility. The stressful incident led several controllers to take trauma leave, leading to low staffing numbers.
As such, the FAA has been limiting the number of flights allowed at Newark so as not to overwhelm the understaffed tower. Theoretically, cutting back on the number of flights ahead of time should reduce the number of last-minute delays and cancellations. The strategy led to smooth operations at Newark over the busy Memorial Day Weekend travel period, according to the FAA.
The FAA has also been scrambling to update the equipment in Newark’s control tower, called a TRACON, which is actually located in Philadelphia. Since the airport’s crisis first began, the agency has so far added three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based hubs and the Philadelphia TRACON, replaced old copper wiring with new fiber optics, and established new backup systems that will kick on in case of an equipment outage.
Officials are also working to improve the control tower’s staffing numbers, which currently stand at 22 fully certified controllers and five fully certified supervisors. The FAA says that an additional 22 controllers and supervisors are currently in the training pipeline to work at the facility in the near future.
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