the ground stops have been lifted at Newark airport but travelers are still dealing with massive delays and cancellations all due to air traffic controller shortages and equipment issues complicated by bad weather and runway construction The CEO of United Airlines which owns most of the hangers at Newark Liberty warned today it's unlikely the problems will be resolved anytime soon and is urging folks to take advantage of travel waiverss allowing them to change their flight dates and connections Ted Goldberg reports People flying into or out of Newark got a nasty surprise Monday morning due to the FAA air traffic control staffing The number of flights into and out of New York Liberty International Airport is limited Hope you enjoyed your your stuff Jordan Derry got this text from United just after his flight landed from Toronto I landed about 10 minutes ago and I got it 7 minutes ago Everything went smooth Took an hour and we're all good The combination of bad weather and a shortage of air traffic controllers has led to hundreds of delayed flights at Newark The first flight into Arizona was delayed a few times So that was a little bit hectic The flight was supposed to be I think around 7ish and we ended up flying like 11ish The shortage of air traffic controllers is a national problem but it's hit harder at Newark airport since their controllers were moved from Long Island to Philadelphia last summer roughly 20% of the controllers who are not working right now in an already understaffed center that is handling two major airports Philadelphia International and Newark Liberty International is not just not good it's disastrous Henry Hardvelt is an airline industry analyst for Atmosphere Research Group moving the these controllers to Philadelphia Tron Center is long-term going to be good if the FAA is able to manage this well and that's a big if The chaos led Governor Phil Murphy to post on X The flight delays and cancellations at Newark airport have been completely and utterly unacceptable I know Transportation Secretary Shawn Duffy is committed to addressing our nationwide air traffic controller shortage by supercharging hiring The past few days have shown us exactly why we need to reverse the decades of staffing decline at the FAA When there's issues you see delays you see cancellations Um our space our airspace is safe because if there are issues uh we don't fly Last Thursday Secretary Duffy spoke about new cash bonuses to keep air traffic controllers from retiring and recruit new ones We also shaved off 5 months from the hiring process It was taking way too long if you applied to be an air traffic controller uh it could take over a year before you got a seat in the academy and a lot of young people uh would go find a different career instead of waiting so long If he's simply saying we want to cut 6 months off the training curriculum that's a concern and that's why I say we we need more clarity into the methodology and the details of where and how the training curriculum can be shortened In response to these staffing issues United is cancelling 35 flights a day at Newark CEO Scott Kirby claimed that 20% of Philly's air traffic controllers walked off the job at one point last week and said it's disappointing to make further cuts to an already reduced schedule at Newark But since there's no way to resolve the near-term structural FAA staffing issues we feel like there's no other choice in order to protect our customers Those customers had varying levels of concern this morning What was your concern level you know going into this High I was hoping that my flight was a little earlier Not really concerned because I know EWR is a hub for United So I thought that United will get more preferences for its flights I saw it on every alert that United has sent to me So I was I'm just anticipating something happening Now I'm a little concerned about Wednesday cuz I'm going to be flying home in the middle of the day So we'll see how that goes It'll be concern on Wednesday If you were still getting rain I'll have some concern because we don't fly out until the afternoonish I think around 1 In response to our request for comment the union representing air traffic controllers said workers in Philadelphia last week temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control unable to see hear or talk to them The controllers did not walk off the job as it has been reported by the media Due to the event the controllers took absence under the Federal Employees Compensation Act The union also expressed support for new incentives to fully staff their departments and try to get airports like Newark back on track at Newark Airport I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News [Music]