After another ground stop on Wednesday, June 4th at Newark International Airport, ongoing technological and staffing issues continue to disrupt travel out of the popular NYC transit hub. Although the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sees a light at the end of the tunnel, it may be further into the future than we’d all hope.
Newark has experienced at least four telecommunication outages in the last few months and three major ground stops. All of which continue to delay or cancel trips for thousands of travelers.
To understand this better, Newark’s TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) is handled by the Philadelphia TRACON, due to severe staffing shortages when Newark’s airspace was handled by the New York TRACON on Long Island. Newark also relies on STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route), based in New York, to provide arriving flights with a path to smoothly transition from the en-route phase to the approach phase.
These telecommunication outages between Newark’s STAR and Philadelphia TRACON pose a very serious danger, as they leave controllers at TRACON without access to crucial radar data and communication.
The outage on April 28th, 2025 resulted in five air traffic controllers for Newark going on a 45-day trauma leave. With five gone and another out for medical reasons, Newark was left with just 16 certified air traffic controllers and five supervisors.
Chris Rocheleau, the acting head of the FAA, assured everyone that they are working to fix these technological issues. FAA stated that they are adding new high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON, deploying back up systems at the Philadelphia TRACON, establishing a STARS hub at Philadelphia TRACON, and working to increase staffing. “I think by October, we will be very healthy in there at staffing levels that we need,” Rocheleau stated.
In addition to the technological and staff shortages, Newark was also constructing a runway, adding further complications to the already aviation nightmare. The $121 million runway project reduced Newark’s usual departures per hour capacity by 30%. However, construction has reportedly completed as of this week.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement:
With the runway completed, we’ll continue our work to harden the telecoms infrastructure and improving the staffing pipeline for the airspace.
Once all checks are complete with the finished runway, the airport will return to its maximum arrival rate from the current 28 aircrafts an hour to 34.
Stay up to date on the latest at the FAA official website.