FILE PHOTO: United Airlines planes land and prepare to take off at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., January 27, 2025. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo
A mass exodus of air air traffic controllers assigned to Newark Liberty International Airport led a major airline to scrap dozens of flights, according to a report.
More than 20 percent of air traffic controllers assigned to the busy airport either walked off the job or went on medical leave, leading to a severe staffing shortage. The mass exit follows a pair of major system outages at the FAA's Philadelphia airspace operations center, which manages Newark's air traffic.
On Friday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that United Airlines is canceling 35 daily round-trip flights from the airport beginning as early as this weekend. That's about 10 percent of the airline's 328 daily round-trip flights on average at the airport, which was the 14th-busiest last year, according to the report.
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“Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,” Chief Executive Scott Kirby wrote in a message posted on the website.
Staffers tasked with overseeing Newark's airspace are now too few to handle the number of planes, he added.
The controllers expressed frustration and anger at having to work with archaic equipment and mounting operational stress. The FAA was forced to throttle flights, resulting in hundreds of delays and cancellations.
Several hundred FAA employees have been fired under President Donald Trump's administration, including those responsible for maintaining radar systems, landing gear, and navigational aids-critical support roles for air traffic controllers.