Air Traffic Control Disruption
Perhaps a universal statement: We definitely do not want to risk passenger or crew safety while flying into and out of our airports.
Newark airport, has a problem.
If we were to list the top 10 things that the United States, perhaps any country, needs to get right every single day, where would Air-Traffic Control land… on the list?
Let’s give it a try, ala Dave Letterman. Folks, here are your top 10 things the USA needs to get right, every-single-day… Paul, a drum roll please… and starting with number:
10) Daily living: Enable the economy to function smoothly (responsibility lies with the private & public sector)
9) Safety: provide sufficient fire department response capabilities (public safety)
8) Safety: ensure Air Traffic Control (ATC) keeps flights flying safely (private & public sector)
7) Security: discourage lawless behavior (public safety)
6) Daily living: keep safe food in the grocery stores (private sector)
5) Health: keep ambulances and 911 services operating (private & public sector)
4) Health: keep hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms operating (private sector)
3) Daily living: keep electricity flowing through the wires (private sector)
2) Daily living: keep water flowing through the pipes (private sector)
1) Security: make sure nobody picks a fight (military & intel)
OK, so this took 2 minutes and is probably missing something really important, like no nuclear explosions, or release of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere or oceans, or something like that. Ok, let’s not be glib.
Number 8.
I thought Air-Traffic Control might have ranked higher on this non-scientific list. Anyway, back to the problem.
A Reuters headline today reads:
“United Airlines bears brunt of Newark airport chaos”
I filtered through Reuters’ series of articles about the problem at Newark including today’s announcement of ‘a task force.’
Summary of impact to United Airlines and their passengers:
United has cut 10% of daily Newark flights
More than 9,000 (26%) of United’s global flights have been delayed since April 26, and 2% have been cancelled
Current United CEO issues statement to customers indicating flights through Newark are safe
Former United CEO expects financial fallout to be “significant”
Air-traffic control staffing shortages in November 2024 for 12 days impacted 343,000 passengers
Airport constraints caused United to reduce flights to 295 daily departures, down 33% from pre-pandemic, impacting revenue
Summary of reasons for the problems at Newark airport:
Runway construction project (runway bottleneck)
Air-traffic controller staffing shortages (FAA is 3,500 air-traffic controllers short = personnel bottleneck)
In 2024 the FAA relocated Newark air-traffic controllers to Philadelphia (likely add some and removes other bottlenecks)
FAA indicated 2 redundant telecommunications lines at the Philadelphia location are back up and working now (technology bottleneck)
In 2016 United consolidated operations into Newark and no longer flies through JFK Airport (location bottleneck)
FAA equipment outages (technology bottleneck)
In one of today’s articles, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was quoted “We could see other situations like this around the country because the system is old.”
The article continues regarding Newark, “Duffy said he expects testing will be completed in two weeks after the FAA installed fiber lines to replace copper wire to boost resiliency at the air traffic control center in Philadelphia that handles Newark flights and a successful software patch. “We are going to fix Newark, Duffy said. “Our redundant lines are now working.””
Copper lines?
Oh no.
During his press conference Duffy proposed to spend billions of dollars (they estimated $31 Billion) to fix the network over the next three to four years, and he indicates “We’re having these glitches in the system. So we slow it down and keep people safe. That’s what we do.”
So, which came first, the operational or strategic disruption?
Either way, let’s stay focused on our universal priorities, and keep everyone safe.
Thanks to Reuters, here are links to both of today’s articles: