EXCLUSIVE: A third equipment outage impacted flights at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) on Sunday as the airport continues to grapple with ground stops fueled by staffing shortages and outdated communication systems.
Greg Raiff, founder and CEO of Elevate Aviation Group, told Fox News Digital that under-invested infrastructure and major staffing shortages are disrupting flights at EWR, and the immediate solution is to decrease the number of flights while increasing recruitment.
“This is a problem that is not going to resolve itself overnight,” Raiff said. “The reason that we see it now at Newark is because of the dangerous cocktail of under-invested infrastructure, in terms of the communication lines and the systems that are in place at this new center in Philadelphia, where these new controllers moved to.”
“Coupled with the fact that instead of just being slightly understaffed like a lot of the FAA ATC centers, Newark lost a bunch of controllers literally overnight when the FAA made the decision to force all these employees to relocate to another city,” he added.
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Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) transferred the airspace management, including 12 air traffic controllers, from New York to Philadelphia.
“Like in any workforce, when you tell people that they need to move and commute to a place two hours away, you’re going to lose a bunch of employees. And then there’s also this element of all of a sudden working in a new environment, and all the signals are still going back through New York and being routed down into Philadelphia.”
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Raiff said communication errors between the old facility in New York and the new facility in Philadelphia could have contributed to the initial outages. Additionally, while the FAA’s outdated system has led to communication failures at EWR, Raiff said human error plays a major role.
“Human error is coming from the fact that the FAA decided to move those employees, those air traffic controllers that had been based in New York, for years and years, and picked them up and moved a bunch of them to Philadelphia,” Raiff said.
Raiff, whose private aviation company operates with 10 full-time employees for just one flight, said increasing recruitment is the most sustainable way to prevent communication errors.
“There is nothing like bringing on additional professionals. And unfortunately, there is a shortage in those air traffic control towers and centers right now. Despite Secretary Duffy’s best efforts, I fear that it’s going to take at least 12 or 24 months. You have to recruit individuals. They have to be thoroughly trained. They have to be tested before they can be let loose to actually start guiding airplanes around.”
Raiff said the immediate next step is to decrease the number of flights allowed to operate in and out of EWR and continue to try to “bring back controllers, add controllers, pull people out of retirement, increase training programs and compensation for these air traffic controllers” for the long-term.
“Ultimately, I fear that what’s going to happen is Newark Airport in the short-term is going to be instituting a traffic flow control system where they simply accept the fact that they cannot safely operate as many flights a day as they’ve operated in the past. The net result of that would be canceled flights, rescheduled flights and the airlines having to move some of their traffic to other New York airports. Now, anyone who’s been to JFK or LaGuardia realizes that that’s a lot easier to say than it is to do. But ultimately, the system’s going to have to figure that out because we can’t keep operating this level of flying at Newark Airport in these conditions,” Raiff said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on Thursday a new plan to overhaul the FAA, building “a brand-new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system,” which includes replacing antiquated telecommunications systems and radars, addressing runway safety, building six new air traffic control centers, installing new modern air traffic facilities and adding new weather stations.
Troubles persisted at EWR on Monday, with the airport instituting a ground delay program due to “FAA staffing issues.”
Fox News Digital’s requests for comment from the FAA and EWR were not immediately returned.
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