By David Shepardson
(Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday it will propose flight cuts at Newark Liberty International Airport, citing air traffic controller staffing, runway construction and equipment issues.
The FAA also implemented a new ground delay program at Newark on Monday, citing air traffic control staffing issues.
“The airport clearly is unable to handle the current level of scheduled operations,” the FAA said in a notice ahead of a two-day meeting starting on Wednesday with airlines to discuss flight cuts. “FAA believes that this proposal would reduce overscheduling, flight delays, and cancellations to an acceptable level.”
The FAA is proposing an hourly arrival rate of no more than 28 operations and corresponding departure rate of 28 operations during construction on a runway at Newark.
The FAA meeting will only address planned operations by domestic air carriers.
That limit would be in place until June 15, and on weekends from September through the end of the year. The FAA is separately proposing capping the scheduled rate of arrivals and departures at 34 each per hour through October 25 when construction is not ongoing.
Newark has been hit by a series of telecom outages.
On Sunday, the FAA said a new telecommunications issue at the facility that guides aircraft at Newark forced the agency to briefly slow flights in and out of the airport.
The problem at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control briefly led the FAA to issue a ground stop while it ensured redundancies were working as designed.
On Friday, the Philadelphia facility suffered a 90-second radar and telecommunications outage, the second in two weeks after a serious outage on April 28.
The latest incidents highlight the air traffic control network’s aging infrastructure and come after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday proposed spending billions of dollars to fix it over the next three to four years.
The FAA said last week it was taking immediate steps to address ongoing problems that have disrupted hundreds of flights, especially from United Airlines, the largest carrier at the airport.
United has sharply cut flights and wants the FAA to impose new limitations on Newark flights to address ongoing delays.
The FAA last year relocated control of the Newark airspace to Philadelphia to address staffing and congested New York City area traffic. The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers below targeted staffing levels.
(Reporting by David ShepardsonEditing by Nick Zieminski and Bill Berkrot)
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