Air Traffic Controllers Still Struggling to Communicate With Pilots: Report

Throughout much of this year, a slew of technical problems at Newark International Airport have spurred concerns about flier safety. On a frightening day in April, the airport lost communication with regional planes for about 90 seconds. Not long afterward, United Airlines announced it was cancelling dozens of flights out of the airport. That same month, the FAA committed to sending new equipment and resources to the site, but not long afterward, Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, admitted that he’d switched his wife’s flight to avoid having her fly out of Newark. It wasn’t exactly a show of confidence, although Duffy later claimed that it wasn’t what it sounded like.

In August, the government suggested extending an order that had limited the rate of arrivals and departures at the airport, in an effort to maintain “safety while alleviating flight delays due to staffing and equipment challenges.”

This week, a new report from the New York Times claims that the situation at the airport is still…well, not great. Indeed, the site still seems to have some problems. It could have a lot of them, actually. The Times interviewed five people with “knowledge of the air traffic control center,” who said that recent improvements had not abated ongoing concerns.

Recent staffing for controllers at Newark has been down compared with last spring. New managers appointed after the technology glitches that peaked in April and May have been trying to deny requests from controllers and their supervisors for time off, an effort to apparently boost attendance but has been hurting already-sagging morale. And despite upgrades made by the F.A.A., some of the same equipment issues that hampered controllers in the spring have remained. As a result, controllers overseeing Newark’s traffic, most of whom work out of an office in Philadelphia, have at times found it hard to communicate with pilots in the air.

Yeah, that’s, uh, not good. Airports should be able to communicate with pilots, I say. Gizmodo reached out to the FAA and Newark Airport for comment.

In a statement shared with the Times, the FAA seemed to blame the Biden administration for the airport’s troubles. “Unlike the previous administration, which experienced a significant number of outages at Newark,” officials stated, “Secretary Duffy prioritized addressing the problems and resolved them in record time.” The government clarified that the site currently has 21 certified controllers, although one of them is currently out on medical leave.