FAA extends Newark flight limits over construction, safety concerns
Federal air safety regulators are restricting flights at Newark Liberty International Airport until the end of the year as officials scramble to train more air traffic controllers, install backup equipment and modernize an 'antiquated' system that has deteriorated for years, all while trying to allay the public's growing fear that it's no longer safe to fly.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday ordered the airport to maintain a cap of 28 arrivals and 28 departures per hour until June 15, when daily construction on the main runway is scheduled to end. Once daily construction is over, officials will lift the limit to 34 arrivals and 34 departures per hour from Sundays through Fridays until Oct. 25. For Saturdays, the cap will remain at 28 arrivals and departures per hour through the end of the year.
'Our goal is to relieve the substantial inconvenience to the traveling public from excessive flight delays due to construction, staffing challenges, and recent equipment issues, which magnify as they spread through the National Airspace System,' acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau said in a news release.
The restriction came 11 days after radar systems at the airport stopped working for about 90 seconds and three weeks after a similar outage led to hundreds of delayed or canceled flights. Five air traffic controllers took trauma leave after the outage on April 28, worsening the airport's chronic staffing shortage.
After the second outage, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said in an interview with NBC News's 'Meet the Press' that aired May 11 that it was still safe to fly from Newark but that regulators needed to limit flights there to ensure it remained safe.
Duffy has been charged with revamping the FAA's aging infrastructure and beefing up the perpetually understaffed corps of air traffic controllers after a deadly plane crash near Washington in January and weeks of delays and cancellations that have shaken travelers' trust in the nation's airways.
Duffy said the United States still has the 'safest airspace.'
Travelers still believe flying is safe, but their confidence is wavering, according to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll conducted in February, before the Newark airport outages.
About 64 percent of U.S. adults said they believed flying was safe when asked in the weeks after several high-profile, deadly plane crashes, including one in which an Army helicopter and a passenger jet crashed just outside Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people. That was a drop from the 71 percent who said the same in January 2024. The 2025 poll sampled more than 1,100 adults nationwide.
About 55 percent of U.S. adults said in February that they had 'a great deal' or 'a moderate amount' of confidence in the federal government's ability to maintain air safety, down from 62 percent in 2024.
Tim Craig, Daniel Wu and Hannah Sampson contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
Los Angeles unveils compact, athlete-friendly venue plan for 2028 Paralympics
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Every venue for the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles will be within a 35-mile radius, and athletes will be housed together, on the UCLA campus, for the first time since the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. LA28 announced an updated venue plan Tuesday following approval from the International Paralympic Committee's governing board. The Paralympics will run Aug. 15-27, 2028, about two weeks after the the Los Angeles Olympics end. The majority of sports will be held in Los Angeles, with the downtown and Exposition Park sites serving as the main competition hubs. The Los Angeles Convention Center will host boccia, para judo, para table tennis, para taekwondo and wheelchair fencing. Adjacent to the Convention Center, Arena will host wheelchair basketball. Across the street, Peacock Theater will host goalball in an acoustically optimized setting. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will host para track and field, as well as the closing ceremony. The nearby Galen Center will host wheelchair rugby and para badminton. Venice Beach on the city's westside will be the site of para triathlon and the starting point of the marathon. The Dignity Health Sports Park complex in Carson will host para archery, wheelchair tennis and para track cycling in the velodrome. Climbing will make its Paralympic debut in 2028, with four men's and four women's events in the parking lot of the Long Beach Convention Center. Para swimming will be on the same site in a temporary pool. Sport shooting will be inside the convention center at a temporary range. Long Beach Arena will host sitting volleyball. A temporary arena at Alamitos Beach along the Pacific Ocean will be the site of blind football. Para rowing and para canoe-sprint events will be held at Marine Stadium. Para equestrian events will take place at Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia. ___ AP Olympics:
Wall Street Journal
4 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
The Rise of the $500-a-Night Airport Hotel
SAN FRANCISCO—The welcome ad from Lyft popped onto my phone minutes after my flight landed. 'If you need a ride home, to your hotel or anywhere else, tap to see ride options.' For once, I didn't need a ride anywhere. My hotel was in the airport, a glorious luxury my expense account and vacation budget rarely afford. And for good reason: The Grand Hyatt SFO was charging nearly $500 for a one-night weekday stay in late May.
CBS News
5 hours ago
- CBS News
When a U.S. senator's husband landed on a travel watchlist, a phone call had him removed
A U.S. senator's spouse was placed on a government watchlist in 2023 after a surveillance program flagged his travel profile, but he was removed after the senator back-channeled with administration officials, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News. Shortly after New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen met with the Transportation Security Administration about her husband, William Shaheen, TSA officials removed him from a list of people subjected to additional scrutiny under TSA's "Quiet Skies" domestic surveillance program. William Shaheen, an Lebanese-American attorney active in the Arab-American community, was then placed on a different list, which excluded him from any future advanced screening, including random checks at airport TSA checkpoints, two of the sources said. File: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) (R) and William Shaheen arrive for a State Dinner in honor of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mrs. Sophie Trudeau at the White House on March 10, 2016, in Washington, DC. Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images The episode took place in a heightened security environment in October 2023, days after Hamas attacked Israel and killed more than 1,200 people. TSA's surveillance efforts have long attracted criticism for tracking U.S. citizens not suspected of any crimes. The circumstances that land an individual on a list — or what gets them removed — have been mostly concealed from the public. Quiet Skies, which began in 2010, employs analysts and undercover air marshals to monitor people in airports and during flights, using outstanding warrants, facial recognition software, identification of suspicious travel patterns and behaviors and other data to try to prevent terrorist attacks. Some Americans undertake exhaustive efforts to get themselves removed from the Quiet Skies enhanced screening list — with some even engaging in protracted legal fights. Republican Tulsi Gabbard spoke out in 2024 after she was placed on the Quiet Skies list and subjected to searches and monitoring by federal air marshals. Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and Democratic member of Congress, has since been confirmed as the director of national intelligence. Shaheen's husband, according to sources, was removed from Quiet Skies two days after she contacted David Pekoske, then the TSA administrator. Pekoske served in the post under both Presidents Trump and Biden. The decision to then shield the senator's husband by putting him on what TSA calls the "secure flight exclusion list" marked an unusual step in a system meant to operate outside of political interference. A spokesperson for Sen. Shaheen told CBS News on Tuesday that she contacted TSA after her husband was subjected to several extensive, invasive and degrading searches at airport checkpoints – and was seeking to understand the nature and cause. Sources told CBS that in July 2023 William Shaheen was pulled aside for extra screening at the Boston airport ahead of two flights. Officials said at the time that the security agency randomly selected travelers for additional screening, and William Shaheen had been randomly chosen. Three months later, William Shaheen was flagged by the transportation security agency because his travel companion on two flight reservations was a person listed by the FBI as a "known or suspected terrorist," or KST, a broad designation that covers a wide-ranging risk profile. A federal air marshal was sent to covertly travel near them on a flight on Oct. 18, 2023, one source said. Sen. Shaheen spoke with Pekoske to ask about the situation regarding her husband. On Oct. 20, 2023, her husband was added to the "secure flight exclusion list," a VIP list that exempts a traveler from the security agency's vetting and surveillance programs, including random screenings. An order from TSA headquarters was sent to make sure the safeguarded status for William Shaheen was signaled when his future boarding passes were presented at airports. The spokesperson for Sen. Shaheen said she wasn't aware that her husband had been monitored under the Quiet Skies program, or that he had later been given preferential treatment by being specifically excluded from enhanced screening, The person William Shaheen traveled with, whose identity could not be confirmed by CBS News, was removed from the FBI terrorism watchlist later in 2023, sources familiar with the matter said. It was not clear why the person was placed on the list, though a host of factors including visits to hostile countries, certain suspicious travel patterns, or contacts with designated terror suspects can all contribute to the listing. The spokesperson for Sen. Shaheen declined to identify her husband's travel companion other than to say the person was an Arab-American attorney. The senator was not given any indication the person was designated as a known or suspected terrorist, the spokesperson said. William Shaheen was recently removed from the list of people excluded from any enhanced surveillance, a Department of Homeland Security official told CBS on Tuesday. Mr. Trump has criticized what he refers to as the weaponization of state power and the use of government levers to go after political opponents, but since his reelection, has sought to settle scores with those he perceives to have wronged him. Sen. Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump and his policies, has announced she will not seek reelection in 2026. Her eldest daughter, Democrat Stefany Shaheen, is running for a seat in the U.S. House.
