Credit: (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)WASHINGTON — Airline officials and federal regulators plan to meet this week to discuss flight restrictions, delays and safety issues at Newark Liberty International Airport.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday afternoon the meeting is about limiting delays with representatives of “all airlines who have flights at Newark.”
“The goal is to have a manageable number of flights land at Newark,” said Duffy, who has dealt with a string of aviation safety issues, including a collision in January near the Pentagon between a commercial plane and a military helicopter, during his tenure.
The Federal Aviation Administration laid out details of the meeting in a memo on Monday morning.
On Thursday, Duffy outlined a three-year plan to overhaul the nation’s aviation system with new telecommunications equipment, updated software, hundreds of radar systems and new air traffic control centers.
That plan requires funding from Congress, though it has bipartisan support from the House committee that oversees aviation.
Duffy’s announcement followed several communication blackouts of 90 seconds at Newark. Air traffic controllers lost audio contact with pilots and saw their radar screens go black.
In remarks to reporters Monday, Duffy sharply criticized the Biden administration, in particular for moving air traffic controllers from New York to Philadelphia, something he said the former administration “bungled.”
“The blame belongs with the last administration,” Duffy said, comparing the second Trump administration to a user car buyer who was sold a “lemon.”
The plan to overhaul U.S. air traffic control systems would focus on Newark first, Duffy said. “We’re going to fix Newark,” he said. “And then we’re looking at Congress to fix air traffic for the whole country so no one has to deal with this.”
Asked why President Donald Trump’s first administration did not overhaul air traffic control systems, Duffy said the “cracks that you see today” emerged during the Biden years, not the Trump years.
The nonpartisan inspector general of the Transportation Department found in 2023 that 20 of 26 of the nation’s critical airports did not have enough air traffic control staff to meet an FAA goal of 85% staff. Like operations throughout the federal government, the FAA and air traffic controllers have seen forced cuts and labor disruptions brought by the Department of Government Efficiency, the non-official group backed by Trump and Elon Musk.
The Senate confirmed Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin who has a thin resume on transportation policy, to his job on Jan. 28.
New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, voted against him.
Duffy said he would request an inspector general investigation about the decision to move the air traffic control staff from New York to Philadelphia.
