A third equipment outage reported Sunday morning impacted flights at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).
A ground stop was in place Sunday morning for about 45 minutes, after radar screens briefly went dark, local TV station ABC 7 reported.
“There was a telecommunications issue at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace,” the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed in a statement to FOX Business.
“The FAA briefly slowed aircraft in and out of the airport while we ensured redundancies were working as designed. Operations have returned to normal,” the statement said. No additional details were given.
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Flight tracking website FlightAware says there have been 70 flight cancellations at EWR in the last 24 hours.
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On Saturday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby did a pre-recorded interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” where he maintained his stance that flying is safe and backup procedures are in place for equipment outages.
“It’s the safest way to travel by far,” Kirby said. “I understand how people feel and empathize with that, but I know it’s safe because I’ve spent my whole career in it. I know all the people in aviation, whether they work at United Airlines, other airlines, the FAA. Safety is number one, and it is in the core DNA of everyone.”
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The FAA will hold a “scheduling reduction meeting” on Wednesday morning regarding flights at EWR, even though both Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Kirby said EWR flights have already been scaled back.
“I hate delays, I hate cancellations and I hate families who come with little kids that are sitting there for four hours,” Duffy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UAL | UNITED AIRLINES HOLDINGS INC. | 77.27 | -2.14 | -2.69% |
“I’ve done that myself on occasion. It’s hard. But I want you to get to where you’re traveling, and if that means slowing down flights into Newark, we slow them down to make sure we can do it safely,” he said.
On Sunday afternoon, the FAA said it “has temporarily slowed arrivals into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport due to a runway equipment issue” and that “technicians are working to address the problem.”
The delay was requested by Delta Air Lines and only impacts their flights, an FAA spokesperson told FOX Business.
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