Delays, cancellations, and unsafe conditions at Newark International Airport are the talk in trains, workplaces, and restaurants of the NJ/NYC area. You will often hear someone say “I hope you aren’t flying out of Newark.”
News of the situation broke after an air traffic control (ATC) system outage on April 28 led five to seven controllers taking “trauma leave.” This was effectively an organized walkout by workers who were fearful of unsafe conditions caused by understaffing, poor working conditions, and antiquated air-traffic technologies. Losing this staff was devastating as the FAA has only 22 certified ATCs and another 21 in training serving Newark.
In addition to understaffing, ATC system outages also continued when a complete blackout occurred for ninety seconds on May 8. Even a small shortage is incredibly dangerous, as vital systems like radar scopes and radio communications get shut down, and the control tower loses contact with all planes.
After all this, incredibly, it was reported that Newark “had just three air traffic controllers on duty on Monday [May 12], which was well short of the 14 called for.” By May 14, four hours was still the average flight delay at Newark. The airport serves nearly 50 million people each year and is the second-busiest airport in the New York metropolitan area.
Safety is simply deprioritized. Those failing ATC systems still use copper wiring and floppy disks. On the other hand, airlines got bailed out to the tune of $62 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is the logic of a system designed for billionaires’ profits rather than human need. Rich politicians and CEOs will fly private while the rest of us face horrors like the air collision that left 67 dead in Washington D.C. and Boeing planes that fall apart mid-flight. This is the reality of the capitalist system that prioritizes profits over critical services and can only react to problems as it mindlessly pursues profit.
Despite their promises, we can’t trust Trump or the airline bosses to provide a permanent fix to these issues under a system that actively seeks to exploit us. In fact, it was the walkout action taken by ATC workers that brought attention to the issue in the first place. We need unified action between the ATC, pilots, and flight attendants unions, and the labor movement as a whole, to guarantee a safe and improved airline system.