(NewsNation) — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says old technology is the core issue behind why operations at Newark Liberty International Airport were halted on three separate occasions.
At Newark Liberty International Airport, an equipment outage on Sunday led to dozens of flight cancellations and delays, disrupting plans for thousands of travelers. This marks the third major radar outage at Newark in just two weeks.
Shortly after, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the busiest in the country, experienced a separate air traffic control outage, causing widespread delays for nearly all arriving flights.
In a press briefing on Monday, Duffy also blamed the Biden administration for the current issues at Newark, adding that he will be requesting an investigation by the Office of Inspector General into why a radar center that controls the airport’s airspace was moved to Philadelphia.
In response to the repeated issues at Newark, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced plans to reduce flight volume at the airport over the coming weeks. He also pledged to long-term infrastructure upgrades, though he acknowledged those improvements will take years to implement.
“Families shouldn’t have to wait four or five hours for a flight that never takes off,” Duffy said. “By lowering the number of flights, we can ensure the ones that are kept do actually take off and they do actually land.”
Duffy announced that copper wires at Newark, JFK and LaGuardia airports were replaced with high-speed fiber cables. He also said the FAA has a goal to open three more telecommunication connections between New York and Philadelphia to make things more efficient.
He said if Congress approves the plans for a new air traffic control system, work at Newark will be a priority.
“We’re going to move fast, but we’re going to do it right,” Duffy said.
Sunday’s outage was traced to a recurring failure at a Philadelphia-based radar center that controls Newark’s airspace. Nearly 80 flights were canceled, more than 60 were delayed, and the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a 45-minute ground stop.
Duffy warned that what’s happening at Newark may soon be seen at other airports nationwide.
“So now, I think the lights are blinking, the sirens are turning, and look, we have to fix this because what you see in Newark is going to happen in other places across the country. It has to be fixed,” Duffy said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What we’re having is some telecom issues, but we’re also having some glitches in our software, as the information comes in, it’s overloading some of our lines, and the system goes down.“
Over the weekend, Atlanta also faced significant flight disruptions, with arrivals halted for more than an hour while technicians worked to resolve the issue.