U.S. Politician 'Alarmed' By Situation at Newark Airport
New Jersey Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer is sounding the alarm on the ongoing situation at Newark Airport.
Since last week, Newark has been experiencing widespread delays and flight cancellations. The problem stems from faulty equipment, insufficient air traffic control staffing and the shutdown of one of the airport's main runways for renovation.
On Tuesday, Gottheimer spoke with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, drawing attention to the "alarming" words of United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, whose company is canceling 35 Newark flights daily because the facility can not handle the workload.
"We need those airports running efficiently, and clearly now when you have three or four-hour delays regularly and canceled flights, that's unacceptable. We've got to fix this problem," Gottheimer said. "This is not something we can punt on and hope gets better. We've got to do it now."
Gottheimer emphasized modernizing the "unacceptable" air traffic technology, which last week led to a brief outage at the Philadelphia-based air traffic building that is responsible for Newark flights. The 50-year-old representative said the outdated system still includes copper wiring and employees communicating by passing written notes.
Gottheimer also suggested potentially looking to move air traffic controllers from other areas of the country to Newark to combat the current shortage.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has pledged to hire thousands of new air traffic controllers in the coming months but Gottheimer wants a more immediate solution as well.
"We're 40 staff members short in that region, which means we've gotta figure out a way to bring more on board, get more people trained, pay them right and pay them well," Gottheimer said. "They're overworked. They're working too many hours because they're short-staffed. This is a critical job and an intense job. So, we need to get more people in the training system, but also we've got to rearrange the staffing around the country and bring more into Newark immediately given how important this artery is to the country."
On Tuesday, Newark has had 147 outgoing flights and 214 incoming flights either delayed or canceled, according to Flight Aware's live tracker.
Those figure are the second-highest in the nation for today behind Dallas-Fort Worth International.