Newark air traffic crisis gets worse with one controller to oversee up to 180 takeoffs and landings
One air traffic controller (ATC) and a trainee will operate every flight in and out of Newark between 6.30pm-9.30pm — despite 15 staffers being the standard requirement for a shift.
A New York-based ATC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the situation as 'pure insanity' and warned that the schedule shows the control tower for the airport will operate 'at bare bones' while between 168 and 180 planes are scheduled to take off and land.
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4 Newark Airport in New Jersey has a huge shortage of air control staff, and its control tower is set to be manned by just one qualified controller and a trainee on Monday night.
John McAdorey – stock.adobe.com
It comes after the New Jersey airport was initially facing a 'zero ATC event' — a term used by industry workers to describe the doomsday scenario of no one showing up — Monday afternoon until a controller on his day off agreed to come in and cover the evening shift.
'One of the controllers is canceling his day off and coming into work. But that's not going to safely cover the entire system,' the source warned The Post.
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The source said that a similar situation had occurred on Sunday when only two ATC's were on for the night shift.
'15 is the target for EWR. Anything less than half of that is rough. Safety begins to be compromised,' he said, adding that he has 'never seen anything like this' in his decades-long career.
'If you get below half of that standard, so seven, your safety begins to be compromised and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) knows that. So what they'll do is put out ground stop delays and that's what we're seeing across the country.
'But it's still just dangerous when 1-3 controllers are getting slammed.'
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The FAA and Department of Transportation (DOT) did not immediately return The Post's request for comment.
However, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy gave a press conference about Newark where he said: 'I think it is clear that the blame belongs with the last administration. Joe Biden did nothing to fix the system they knew was broke.'
4 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has claimed the control tower problems are the fault of the previous administration.
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4 A screen displaying a huge number of delayed flights at Newark on May 9.
REUTERS
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The airspace around New York and New Jersey is considered one of the 'busiest and most complex' sectors in the nation, according to several ATCs who spoke to The Post.
'In ideal weather, with full staffing and with perfectly functioning technology, the FAA tells us that the airport can only handle 77 flights per hour,' United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in a note to employees last week.
'And yet, the FAA regularly approves schedules of 80+ flights per hour almost every day between 3:00pm and 8:00 p.m.'
'This math doesn't work,' Kirby added in the note. 'Especially when there is weather, staffing issues or technology breakdowns — the airspace, taxiways, and runways get backed up and gridlock occurs.'
Newark Liberty International Airport, where United Airlines Holdings Inc. operates 68% of the airport's flights, experienced two jarring radar and communications failures in two weeks. The outages prompted the FAA to propose limiting the airport to no more than 56 total operations per hour.
4 The air control tower at Newark airport.
AFP via Getty Images
The FAA and airlines are meeting on Wednesday to discuss flight cuts at Newark Liberty International Airport.
The source claimed there is a solution to the drastic staffing shortages that have brought the airport to a standstill, caused endless flight delays and cancelations, and prompted widespread safety concerns.
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'It is because Pete Buttigieg and the union collaborated and moved the [Newark] sector from Long Island [in New York] to Philadelphia last summer in the name of 'staffing concerns',' he told The Post.
The FAA previously said the Newark Airport chaos was being exacerbated by at least ATC's who took 'trauma leave' of up to 45 days to cope with the stress of equipment failures.
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Chicago Tribune
4 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
From gray to green: Across Chicago, dozens of concrete schoolyards transformed into community hubs and flooding solutions
Scissors in hand, Hispanic moms in the Hegewisch neighborhood sneak into their children's schoolyard and snip herbs from the garden to season food and put a twist in their mole. The , or purslane, is part of a variety of vegetables and plants entrusted to the care of students and teachers at Grissom Elementary School. 'The neighbors are like, 'Oh my God, do you mind?'' said Esperanza Baeza, a bilingual teacher assistant at the school. She tells the parents, 'This is garden. You take whatever you want.' A decade ago, Grissom's schoolyard at 12810 S. Escanaba Ave. was not the vibrant space it now is. The tree-lined streets flanking the property stood in stark contrast to 2 acres of dull concrete where the children would play during recess. Now, the school has a native plant garden brimming with tall grass, flowers and butterflies, a new swing set and additional playground equipment, a basketball court, a running track circling a soccer field and an outdoor class area. 'This was just asphalt. There was nothing,' Baeza said. 'It was a really old little piece of swing. Not even a swing, like a slide. That was it.' The new spaces are also redesigned to address heavy rains in neighborhoods historically vulnerable to serious flooding, particularly on the South and West sides of the city. In 2014, Chicago-based Healthy Schools Campaign, a national nonprofit that works to ensure schools can provide students with healthy environments, nutritious food, health services and opportunities for physical activity — transformed playgrounds at Grissom and three other schools. Since then, the Space to Grow program has turned 36 barren yards at public schools across Chicago into green community hubs; five more redesign projects are breaking ground this summer. Claire Marcy, senior vice president of Healthy Schools Campaign, recalls principals from different schools echoing the same concerns: 'Look at my outdoor space,' they'd say. 'It's concrete, it's broken equipment. When it rains, it's just giant puddles.' Human-made climate change is only intensifying heavy storms in the Midwest that more easily overwhelm Chicago's outdated sewer system. At Grissom, permeable surfaces and the water retention system can hold nearly 254,000 gallons at once, and drain quickly between storms. One of the most recently redesigned schoolyards, which opened at Spencer Technology Academy in Austin this May, can capture more than 625,000 gallons of water each year. Experts hope the redesign will help mitigate heavy rains like those that occurred in July 2023, when most 311 calls for basement flooding came from the West Side neighborhood, a predominantly Black community in an area with high flood risk. Many of the schoolyards have permeable play surfaces that absorb water into the ground. Some also have underground storage systems — large chambers that slow the release of water into the local sewer system. 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Every other year, she takes cuttings from some of the herbal plants to create new patches of vegetation. While Chicago Public Schools has contracts for schoolyard maintenance, students and teachers at the redesigned spaces often participate in daily and regular tasks to care for them, especially the gardens. 'There's a lot of conversation with the students and the school teams about this: How do we make this your schoolyard that you want to help maintain?' Marcy said. 'There's that everyday stuff about sort of loving and owning the schoolyard … students have really taken ownership over that.' Inspiring that ownership starts from the beginning of the design process, which involves all students, teachers, administrators and also the broader community. Since the yards remain open after school and on the weekends, they serve as a public park. 'It's really the only community space on this side of Hegewisch that's accessible,' said Christine Hurley, Grissom's principal Through the collaborative design process, the final elements in each schoolyard respond to needs that might vary across institutions and neighborhoods. Students take surveys, do mapping activities and even create 3D dioramas to bring their visions to life. 'We really value the power of student voices,' Zhang said, 'because students and children and young people, in general, are an overlooked population and demographic when it comes to development and making decisions about what happens in their neighborhood. And they're our future leaders.' On a recent weekday morning, some students were watering the community garden beds as part of summer school programming. They had just wrapped up a yoga and meditation session. Once transformed, these play and learning spaces also provide the school and community with a place of relaxation and well-being. Four years after Grissom opened its new schoolyard, researchers from Loyola University and the University of California at Berkeley found the redesigns there and at two of the other schools had increased the use of outdoor space, positive student interactions, greater physical activity, higher teacher satisfaction, and strengthened the relationships between the schools and their communities. Baeza's phone rang. It was a student's mother. 'She's the one (who) helps me with the garden,' the teacher said. 'We have parents that are very dedicated.' In 2022, the school received an Excellence in Gardening Award from a committee including the University of Illinois Extension, the Shedd Aquarium, Forest Preserves of Cook County and the Chicago Community Gardeners Association. Baeza had named it or Garden of Harmony. 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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
When is the first day of school for Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan counties?
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New York Times
5 hours ago
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Slimmer, but Still One Big Oyster
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