(NewsNation) — Flight cancellations and delays are expected to continue Tuesday at Newark Liberty International Airport amid ongoing weather troubles, equipment failures and air traffic control staffing shortages.
Tuesday morning, the airport’s inbound flights were delayed, on average, by around two hours and 40 minutes, per the Federal Aviation Administration. On Monday, 364 flights were delayed and 160 were canceled at the airport, according to FlightAware.
The continued travel interruptions come as details emerge over an April 28 incident in which air traffic controllers in Philadelphia lost radar and communications with planes over Newark and were “unable to see, hear, or talk to them,” the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a statement.
The outage lasted less than two minutes, NewsNation local affiliate WPIX reported.
The union said that after the communications error, controllers took time off under the Federal Employees Compensation Act — clarifying they did not “walk off the job,” as United CEO Scott Kirby had said.
“Some controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON who work Newark arrivals and departures have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages. While we cannot quickly replace them due to this highly specialized profession, we continue to train controllers who will eventually be assigned to this busy airspace,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
The employee exodus compounded other issues at the airport, including air traffic control systems that the FAA called “antiquated.”
Last week, United Airlines announced the cancellation of 35 round-trip flights out of the airport. The company is now allowing travelers to change to Philadelphia or LaGuardia airports for free.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is expected to unveil a major overhaul of the nation’s air traffic control system Thursday.
Duffy said the plan includes modernizing telecom, radar and infrastructure, in addition to hiring more controllers, calling it a fix for a problem decades in the making.