The Federal Aviation Administration knew more than a year ago that Newark Liberty International Airport did not have enough air traffic controllers to handle this summer’s flight demands but did nothing to address the issue, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) alleged today.
“What’s unbelievable is they don’t seem to have a plan for what to do about it,” Gottheimer said. “They admit they don’t have a plan.”
The North Jersey congressman cited some startling statistics: an FAA Inspector General report suggesting that the number of air traffic controllers is about 20% below what they need with a two-year wait until more can be hired and trained; that 8% of all flights were delayed because of an airline issue, and that 5% of all flights faced delays because of flaws with the national aviation system. Less than 1% of all flights this summer were delayed due to weather.
“New Jersey families who save their hard-earned dollars for trips shouldn’t have to face repeated flight delays and costly cancellations,” stated Gottheimer.
That’s part of the reason Gottheimer is hammering the FAA.
“They knew demand is up there. They have shortages of flights where they’ve cut back on their flights, demands up, cut back on flights,” Gottheimer noted. “Then you’ve got huge air traffic issues, so you knew this was going to be a powder keg. You knew you had a problem on your hands, and I’m upset and really put off that the FAA knew about it and yet didn’t do anything about it.”
He’s heard horror stories from constituents.
“Their planes getting canceled, planes being canceled for days. The weather being perfectly beautiful outside and their flights being canceled for several days,” said Gottheimer. “That’s outrageous. Then they keep getting bumped and bumped.
What frustrates Gottheimer most, he said, was that the FAA knew about the problem long before the summer.
“What were they doing about it to get ahead of it, and what were they doing in terms of air traffic movement and flights, in terms of saying to the airlines, what are you doing to prepare for this? he asked. “Part of my frustration here is that they knew the problem was coming. They didn’t do anything about it. These things are very difficult to fix quickly.”
The FAA reauthorization bill passed by the House yesterday included language written by Gottheimer requiring a Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study flight delays in the tri-state region, as would authorize hiring more air traffic controllers and increase the pipeline of more trained pilots and aviation workers. His bill includes a push for more innovation to make air travel more effective.
Gottheimer suggested that the FAA needs to work smarter.
“Part of the issue is maximizing slots,” he said. “You can add more planes at the airport, but if there’s not enough space in their air for all those planes, you can’t put them up.”
But staffing, crew, and baggage issues mean that the airlines “definitely own a chunk of the blame” for the massive delays this summer.
Along with delays, United has cut about 12% of its daily flights in and out of Newark from its schedule, despite taking on six new gates at Terminal A and only using one of them.
“If it turns out United is just not running an efficient enough airport or airline, then that’s going to actually really help us determine the next steps here and what we should be calling for,” said Gottheimer. “It’s why I’m really trying to get to the bottom of what some of the issues are that keep causing these delays every summer.”
Addressing a short-term plan to fix air travel issues was one of the reasons he asked U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to tell him what he’s doing to help New Jerseyan who are facing delays at Newark this summer – and determine if there are “big systemic issues that we can get to the bottom of.”
“We hopefully get past this summer issue that we faced last summer too,” Gottheimer said. “We don’t want to be back in the soup here, and people just expect this is the way it is every summer. It shouldn’t be. They should have the capacity.”
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