while air travel in and out of the region descended into further chaos this weekend making for a rocky star to one of the busiest travel weekends of the Year Newark Airport on Sunday topped the list of cancellations with about 190 flights scrapped in and out of Newark according to the Tracking Company FlightAware it was a combination of Staffing shortages Crew Scheduling and severe storms converging AAA predicts a record number of people will travel through the July 4th holiday surpassing pre-pandemic numbers the travel Mayhem comes after serious travel woes at airports Just A Week Ago an ominous sign for the industry passengers on the roads and in Disguise are just being told to practice patience Ted Goldberg reports the experiences of people flying through Newark today have run the gamut from routine to rage inducing Minneapolis took about 10 minutes to get through airport security and then here with Delta there's no lines so it should be pretty in and out pretty quick we we go to here two hours later coming from Tampa to New York we get delayed three times and when we arrive here or plan to Brussels left we were supposed to go to Orlando yesterday and it was delayed delay delayed and then it was canceled and they rebooked us so I mean we lost a day of our vacation bad weather and high volume of Travelers have led to more delays and cancellations than we normally see over the Fourth of July weekend according to the company FlightAware around 200 Newark flights have been canceled over the last 24 hours leaving Travelers scrambling to make new travel plans now we have a two-hour layover in Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach is lovely this time of year it is yeah but we're only there for two hours and then we're on another plate it's frustrating but like because they were excited they wanted to be there I can't put myself on the shoes because as human everybody make a mistake you know we don't know what's really going on the only time I was upset was yesterday because I have to run and I just realized I need to do more exercise I couldn't breathe she's far from the only frantic traveler AAA estimates more than a million new jerseyans Will Travel 50 plus miles for the holiday with more than 136 000 people in the state traveling by air AAA spokesperson Tracy Noble says a few factors have led to more delays it was kind of The Perfect Storm at the airports so not only did we have record high travel numbers for the holiday weekend but also major weather delays and then additionally even some scheduling conflicts at Newark Airport specifically United Airlines uses Newark as a hub and its CEO blames the FAA for not hiring enough air traffic controllers in a public letter Scott Kirby said Airlines can plan for things like hurricanes Sub-Zero temperatures and snowstorms but United has never seen an extended limited operating environment like the one we saw this past week at Newark Transportation secretary Pete budige fired back on Twitter stating that while most Airlines had delays and cancellations the past week United had way more of them travel industry analyst Henry hardevelt says United does have a point the FAA is still short staffed they're dealing with uh problems with with overtime for their controllers not having enough controllers and still recovering by the way from limitation placed on the FAA during covet in terms of how many people they could hire to become air traffic controllers hardevelt says another issue is Newark Airport itself and its Runway system designed in the 1950s it's outdated it's outmoded it's inefficient and so what's really needed is for the Airlines and the FAA and whoever else needs to be at the table to sit down and say how do we intelligently and efficiently add more runways at Newark Airport a difficult question as more Travelers use Newark Airport to get in and out of the tri-state area at Newark Airport I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music] [Music]