United CEO sounds alarm about flying to this U.S. airport
The airport cancelled over 140 flights amid increasing chaos on May 5.
Since the start of May, one of the country's biggest airports has struggled to emerge from chaos amid a series of equipment failures and lack of air traffic controllers even for basic operations.
A labor union representing over 20,000 controllers across the U.S. just announced that a number of their members who worked at the control tower navigating arrivals at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) on April 29 are currently on stress leave after a fried piece of copper wire caused a 90-second radar blackout that left them "unable to see, hear, or talk to" any planes flying in.
Newark has been facing continued and significant disruptions to its flight schedule since the start of the month; on May 5, the airport saw the cancellation of at least 140 flights as well as the delay of hundreds of others. The average traveler faced a delay of four hours.
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'No other choice to protect our customers': United CEO
In response to such news, United Airlines (UAL) CEO Scott Kirby published a letter informing travelers that the airline "cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead."
"This particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it's now clear — and the FAA tells us — that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead," Kirby wrote in the May 4 letter that also announced the cancelation of 35 domestic routes out of the airport.
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Kirby further added that while "it's disappointing to make further cuts to an already reduced schedule at Newark," the airline's leadership "feel[s] like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers."
In an interview with NBC News, an anonymous air traffic controller went one step further and told senior correspondent Tom Costello that flying into EWR is "not safe."
Costello later classified the situation as "unprecedented," since it marks the first time in recent history that an airport worker outright publicly questioned the safety of a major U.S. airport. Image source: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
'Separately, avoid Newark at all costs': ATCs also sound alarm
"He just said that to me, and separately, ‘Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs,'" Costello said during an appearance on MSNBC.
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A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a statement saying that it has "invested billions to modernize Newark Liberty, but those improvements depend on a fully staffed and modern federal air traffic system."
Along with aging infrastructure, low air traffic controller numbers is a problem that dates back decades — the high-stress nature of the job and mandatory retirement age of 65 make any recruitment efforts promised by different administrations rife with challenges. The FAA is currently at least 3,000 short of its target goals at airports across the country.
On May 5, the government agency overseeing aviation safety issued a statement confirming that multiple controllers in the Philadelphia-New Jersey area "have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages."
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