Three recent radar glitches between air traffic controllers and planes at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport are raising questions about summer travel and the overall safety of flying in the U.S. Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, a Forbes staff writer covering the travel industry, joined ForbesTV anchor Maggie McGrath to talk about the tech failures and what it would take to revamp air traffic control procedures in the U.S.
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00:00Hi, everyone. I'm Maggie McGrath, Senior Editor at Forbes. Air traffic control issues are plaguing
00:08Newark Liberty International Airport, and it's raising a lot of questions about summer travel.
00:16Joining me now to talk about the issues at Newark and more broadly what this means for
00:20the summer travel season is my colleague, Suzanne Rowan-Kelleher. She's been following this closely.
00:25Suzanne, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.
00:30So you published a story, and I'm just going to read the headline, Newark Airport Crisis,
00:34Ground Delay, More Flight Cancellations After Third Equipment Outage. What is going on in New Jersey?
00:42So the problem is actually happening in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Airport has something called a TRACON,
00:50which is FAA speak for Mission Control Hub. And the data, the air traffic controllers from
00:59Philadelphia are actually the ones that guide the planes into Newark. So they have had a series of
01:07tech failures, radar outages over the last couple of weeks. But reporting from NBC says that, you know,
01:18some of the air traffic controllers have seen this happening before, before April, and actually eight or nine times since August.
01:31So it has been a recurring problem before it was reported.
01:35Eight or nine times there have been glitches. Now, it's one thing to talk about a tech delay or a tech glitch when we're talking about Google or a word processor,
01:45but this is, these are planes. These are planes taking off and landing. So I guess I have two questions.
01:51There's the fundamental question of what this means for air traffic in and out of these airports. I mean, how many flights have been canceled?
01:57Let's start there. And what is happening right now? Are flights being canceled as we speak?
02:03They are, but really, Newark now is under what's called a ground delay. That is a mechanism that the FAA uses to control,
02:11restrict, basically, the number of planes in and out. And they seem to have it under control, fingers crossed.
02:19There is, there are delays today, but out of Newark, but the average delay, the last time I looked was only 19 minutes.
02:27So, you know, they, they're basically pulling back on the capacity so they can sort this out and beyond.
02:38But it's important for people to realize beyond the tech glitches, which as you're, you're absolutely right.
02:43A glitch, one of the glitches was 30 seconds, but in air traffic control time, that's an eternity.
02:52The other issue is that there is a shortage, a chronic long-term shortage of air traffic controllers.
02:59There were 22 air traffic controllers at the, the TRACON in Philadelphia.
03:06Four or five of them, I'm told, are on medical leave because it was so traumatic, what happened on April 28th, that they are on leave.
03:16So that's even further exasperating the problem.
03:20So there are two kind of twin problems going at the same time.
03:25One is outdated tech and the other one is an air traffic controller shortage.
03:30And of course, one feeds the other.
03:33We've seen reporting from our colleagues at the New York Times on the chronic stress that air traffic controllers are under, which leads me to maybe even more important than flights getting canceled.
03:44How safe is it to fly in and out of Philadelphia and Newark right now?
03:49If you're booking a flight and you have the choice to fly out of BWI or JFK or LaGuardia, should you do that?
03:57Well, there have been a lot of, a lot of experts that have said you should do that.
04:01Uh, CEO of United Airlines, Scott Kirby said, do not fly out of Newark.
04:07That was right after the April 28th incident.
04:10So he, and, and, and he immediately pulled back the daily schedule for United, cut 35 flights a day.
04:18So the other thing important to know if you are flying out of Newark is that you might be eligible for a travel waiver, which means you have a ticket, but the airline is letting you change your ticket at no extra, you know, bypassing the, the, uh, change fee and fly out of either a different airport or move your flight to a different date.
04:43So personally, I would do that if I were ticketed on a flight, I would say, maybe I could fly out of somewhere else instead of Newark.
04:53But as, uh, we were talking briefly before, uh, the call started, um, yesterday on meet the press, the transportation secretary, uh, Sean Duffy said that he fully expects that this could happen at other airports.
05:08It's not just a newer problem. It is, uh, it has shown itself at Newark, uh, in a real crisis, but the problem exists everywhere.
05:20Let's dig into that. What did he say or cite as evidence that this could happen elsewhere? Obviously, Philadelphia, Newark, it sounds very Northeast, but if folks in California are watching, what should they be listening to from their local officials when it comes to SFO or LAX?
05:36Or any of the airports outside of the Northeast?
05:39Well, important to know that Newark is a major airport in the U.S., but it's not even in the top 10. It's like number 13. The top airports, uh, you know, you have Atlanta, you have LAX, Denver, um, Chicago O'Hare.
05:55They have the same outdated, um, technology, right? So everybody is basically using the same technology from 30 years ago, sometimes, sometimes more.
06:09So it's what I would say is, um, and I hear this all the time, people who would normally say, well, I'm going to fly unless I could drive in less than six hours.
06:21Maybe they're extending that to eight hours. Maybe, you know, people are really kind of considering whether they're going to fly or drive.
06:29Um, air travel is safe. Statistically, it's very safe. They, the FAA knows what it's doing in terms of managing, uh, airflow. So air traffic flow. So if it is looking like, you know, there are too many flights coming in and out of an airport, they're going to scale back a lot. And the, and the ground delay mechanism is used all the time.
06:53At the same time, this was happening at Newark. Newark was also building an air, uh, a runway repairing and there was construction. So that was also adding to the delay time. And that kind of thing happens all the time. Sometimes there are ground delays because of weather. Sometimes it's because of a construction project. And sometimes it's because of a shortage of air traffic controllers.
07:14So, um, I would, the first thing I would do when I, if I were traveling is always download the app for the airline that you're, you're flying with so that you get the alerts as soon as they come. Um, there is a great, uh, tool on a site called flight aware, where you can track your, you can actually track your plane to see if it's been delayed somewhere else.
07:40That will tell you whether you can expect, you know, if the, if your plane is coming from another airport and it's already the blade, your flight's probably going to be delayed too. Um, so there are, I think it is, I mean, it, to me, it was kind of troubling for, uh, Sean Duffy to say, yeah, expect this at other airports. And we're, remember, we're also going into the busy season.
08:04I was just about to ask, is it too soon to tell how these glitches and delays will affect not just Memorial Day weekend, but summer travel as a whole?
08:15I think it is. Um, I think the, the thing is, even though they're talking about making, you know, major, you know, Sean Duffy had a press conference last, uh, last week saying they, they need tens of billions of dollars from Congress to revamp the system. That's going to take years. Um, you know, they can,
08:37they can put these temporary management, um, procedures in place, but you know, nothing is an, an air traffic controllers. He can't snap his fingers and produce thousands of air traffic controllers. It takes four years of training to become a certified air traffic controller. So even though, again, like he said, he was going to hypercharge the, the hiring process, you know, it's, it, it, nothing is solved in a day.
09:04Uh, it's going to take not even weeks or months. These things are going to take years.
09:10I was just about to ask because you covered this press conference for Forbes.com air traffic control overhaul announced by Trump administration. So it sounds like a big move, but is there anything that's going to happen to ease the situation in the near term? Or is this all a three to four year timeline?
09:27Realistically it's an, and, and, and he kind of said, Duffy said in the press conference, he can do it in three or four years if they get the money, right? This has to be approved by Congress. In the past, what's happened is that we've known about these problems for years and years.
09:46Congress has had, um, Congress has had, um, a real incrementalism attitude to fixing these things. Uh, the Biden administration tried to get, you know, funding. Some of it was blocked. Um, so it is, I think what's happened is that the crisis has really kind of risen to a full steam.
10:05And now finally, it's like hitting somebody over the head with frying pan. They are all hands on deck. Let's fix this now. But the problem has been there for decades, literally both for the air traffic controllers and for the technology known problems for decades. And the problems have been solved with sort of, um, you know, scotch tape and paper clips and not, you know, not any revamping, which is what really has to happen.
10:35You reported that the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, told reporters last week that the aging air traffic control system is a, quote, untenable risk to safety. So in light of that statement, you said it's still very safe to fly. But how safe is it to fly? As a sometimes nervous flyer, I hear that sentence from Jennifer. And I think, yikes, it's maybe I should take the train across the country.
11:05Well, this also, Jennifer Homendy, by the way, is the real deal. Like she lives and breathes and sleeps safety. Um, and she said this before, this isn't the first time she's raised these, these flags. She raised it after the midair collision at Reagan National Airport.
11:23Um, so, you know, I think she's, you know, thrilled that there is this now this momentum to actually do something that's more than just an incremental fix.
11:35I mean, I would love to say, I mean, statistically, everybody says, all, you know, from Jennifer Homendy at the NTSB, to Sean Duffy, they all say perfectly safe to fly. I fly all the time. Um, you know, we have a great record. And, um, you know, the FAA knows how to manage things.
11:57It is troubling that in the last three or four months, we've seen a number of very, uh, unusual, irregular, however you want to phrase it, things that we have not seen in decades.
12:11So, um, I do think it's a personal decision whether people feel safe. I, you know, I think, uh, a lot of people are kind of saying, well, uh, I used to drive three and a half hours, uh, or I used to fly because if I drove, it would be five, a five hour drive. Now they're saying, you know what, I'll just drive for the five hours. Um, so, you know, I think it is a personal decision. I think, um, you know, Sean Duffy is,
12:41raising the alarm that it could happen somewhere else. Not, not an accident, but a glitch. And, but these glitches, 30 seconds, if an air traffic controller loses sight of a plane on its radar for 30 seconds, that could be a disaster.
13:00That sounds like an eternity, because if you watch any of the simulations of flights coming in and out of some of the nation's busiest airports, it's not even 30 seconds.
13:10It can be 10 seconds between one flight taking off and another flight landing. So what's next? What, what are the questions you'll be asking your sources? What will you be listening for? And what is crucial for the Forbes audience to be watching for and listening for?
13:24Well, I mean, I'm, I'm always looking at, um, FAA statements, DOT statements. I'm also, I'm looking at flight aware for number of cancellations every day and the flow. You can go on to the FAA dashboard for the national aerospace, um, system. And you can see, I mean, at any given day, there are a number of airports that are on ground stops and ground delays, nothing to do with air traffic controller.
13:53Some of the, some of the, some of the issues we talked about earlier, whether there can be, I mean, there's so many things that can disrupt the flight in the summer.
14:02In the summer, the biggest issue that plagues air traffic is weather. It's, you know, it's thunderstorms, it's, you know, things like that. So there's just so many things that it's a very complicated, complex issue to control the air traffic system in this country.
14:23And they do know, yeah, I, I, I mean, it's sort of a split screen. You, you say, do they know what they're doing? They do. But we're seeing that everything is coming to a head.
14:37The old technology is kind of budding heads with the air traffic controller shortage and everything is sort of right in our face all the time. Um, I think if you're going to be honest, you have to say these problems have existed and people have been, will, you know, blind to them in, in some respect because they have not been front and center in the news headlines.
15:00Um, so it's sort of like, you know, every expert I know who deals in air traffic and in airline safety and airport safety says always quotes me the stat that you're much safer in the, you know, getting on a plane than you are getting in your car.
15:16So that's something else to think about. You know, people will say, well, I'll drive, but that's actually statistically less safe. Um, I don't really have an answer, Maggie, other than.
15:28Well, there are a lot of cash to, yeah, everybody has to sort of, uh, gauge their own comfort level.
15:36Now on the matter of the tens of billions of dollars that would be needed to basically overhaul our air traffic control system, I'm thinking of the doge cuts that we have been seeing over the course of the first hundred plus days of the second Trump administration.
15:52How likely is it that these funds will become available? And also have there been cuts to the FAA budget that are affecting what we're seeing right now?
16:02Sean Duffy says no. He says that the cuts that were made do not affect the controllers. The controllers are exempt from those kinds of cuts.
16:11So it was made, those cuts were made in other parts of the agency. Um, but I mean, it is, uh, I think people, people will say, well, you need everybody in the FAA, right? Like, you know, um, maybe it's tech people who were cut.
16:29Maybe it's, you know, people in other systems that were cut. Um, they stick to their guns and say, well, did not affect anything. So, um, you know, we have to, I suppose, take them at their word.
16:46And in terms of those tens of billions of dollars that require congressional approval, how likely is that to pass? And if, if every person were to call his or her congressperson, would that speed the process?
16:57I think so. I think we are at a literal crisis point. Like it has been kind of a low burning crisis. Um, and I think only because the FAA has an amazing record. I mean, it's been a long time since there was a fatality on a commercial, you know, there, you see this in private jets all the time that there are crashes and incidents.
17:20A commercial jet has not had an accident before the Reagan National Airport, uh, midair collision for a very long time, like at least a decade.
17:30And so, I mean, that they, they always sort of pointed to that record as evidence that flying was so safe. Um, but I think, you know, um, you can't help out question that now because of all the, the things that we've seen just in the last few months.
17:50Suzanne Rowan-Kelleher, thank you for covering us for Forbes. Thank you for coming on and talking about your reporting thus far. We will be watching you closely as the summer unfolds. So keep, keep up the good work and please come back as you have updates for us.
18:03Thanks, Maggie.