As Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) continues to struggle with air traffic controller shortages and runway construction, United Airlines claims that it has turned a corner and is assuring Newark customers that they can expect safe and reliable travel this summer on United.
United Assures Newark Flyers: We’re Back on Track
A letter from Jon Gooda, the Vice President of Airport Operations at EWR, went out to MileagePlus members in the New York/New Jersey area yesterday, which I’ll include in full below. Gooda is a rockstar at United and used to be chief at Denver (DEN). This is a man who was in the concourse setting up cots and helping delayed passengers personally during Denver operational meltdowns and I’m positive he has been hands-on at Newark over the last few weeks.
I’m Jon Gooda, and I’ve been with United Airlines for more than two decades, including most of the past year leading our team at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). Since you’re a MileagePlus member who frequently travels through EWR, I wanted to keep you updated about what’s happening here.
Earlier this week, the FAA reduced the overall number of flights in and out of EWR by about 30%. This is good news for our customers.
A few weeks ago, we proactively cut about 35 United flights from our schedule. That helped ease congestion caused by both the ongoing runway construction at EWR and Air Traffic Control staffing shortages, and it also got our operation back on the right path.
In the first three months of this year, United canceled flights to and from EWR at a lower rate than any other airline, and EWR had a lower cancellation rate than John F. Kennedy International (JFK) and New York LaGuardia (LGA) combined. And since we trimmed our schedule in early May, EWR is back to beating LGA in on-time arrivals and quickly closing the gap with JFK.
On 8 of the past 11 days, we canceled less than 1% of our flights out of EWR, beating the year-to-date average of the three major tri-state area airports. In fact, United is number one nationwide in the month of May for on-time departures.
We expect EWR’s runway construction to be completed in mid-June. Our plan is to slowly and safely build our schedule over the summer. However, because of the recent FAA decision, every airline’s schedule at EWR will be smaller than planned and smaller than last year, including ours. We’ll operate fewer daily flights this summer compared to last year, which gives us even more confidence that our EWR operation will continue to run reliably.
We appreciate your patience as we take steps to keep our airline running on time and get you where you need to go safely, and I hope to see you at EWR soon.
Sincerely,
Jon Gooda,
Vice President of Airport Operations
Newark Liberty International Airport
There’s no new news in this letter, but it underscores United’s confidence that with the schedule reductions and completion of the runway work next month, operations will return to normal, which United has repeatedly pointed out was stronger at Newark than at LGA or JFK in terms of cancellations during the first quarter of 2025.
At the height of the delays and cancellations 7-10 days ago, I had many folks reaching out to me asking if they should cancel their upcoming flights to Newark. My answer then was no and that remains the correct answer. Might you run into congestion delays? Of course…just like at JFK and LGA.
But the delays themselves were a sign that safety came first…takeoffs and landings were slowed down to account for ATC personnel shortages, construction, and other issues that compounded to create an operational nightmare…but a safe operational nightmare.
CONCLUSION
All else equal, I’d avoid Newark if you are just connecting during the summer and you have other options…I’d avoid New York City altogether. But it appears that United (operating over 70% of flights from Newark) has got operations back under control after a choppy two weeks of extreme delays and cancellations. That’s important progress.
image: PANYNJ
When asked, a United pilot friend (based at EWR) of mine told me not to change my late June flight out of EWR to Frankfurt. He is confident issues will be resolved. So fingers crossed because alternatives to my booked flights are not appealing.
Kirby : EWR :: Trump : Anything
Seems reasonable
Having worked for the FAA and PANYNJ and knowing EWR operations very well, I don’t have confidence things will be resolved. Yes, cutting flights will help, but the cause of the airport’s problems will not go away and they’re not being sufficiently addressed. Heck, as of this writing, the airport is going through a ground delay program, like it has every day since the sector was moved. LGA and JFK operations are running fine. I also know a few controllers working the EWR sector and none of them are flying out of there, and they’re telling their families to avoid the airport. Even Duffy won’t let his wife use EWR (he’s lying with his excuse, let’s be honest), which speaks volumes. And if EWR is approaching LGA’s number for delays, it’s because it’s handling fewer flights. Who would have thought that would ever happen?
You know something’s off when the letter mentions a 30% flight reduction is a good thing …
A tacit admission that they over scheduled …
I”ll be looking for the next airline commercial touting a reduction in their flights !
Agree no need to cancel existing flights to/from EWR and not concerned about safety. That said I’m sure UA’s future bookings at EWR are taking a beating. Flightaware stats show EWR as operating 28% less flights as they did a year ago. FAA reduction simply matched the reality on the ground. JFK and LGA trend lines more closely match last two years.
NYC fliers have the luxury of 3 airports to choose from. Prices out of EWR were always a tiny bit cheaper in my experience. Now folks will pay a premium to keep flying out of JFK and LGA, and EWR prices will have to be very, very competitive to convince people to fly out of there.
LGA is now world class, JFK has great options as well (DL keeps enhancing T4, and T8 with AA is pretty great because it is never that crowded and chaotic, plus decent international lounges). What exactly is convincing people to fly out of EWR – the new terminal A that is a schlep from both the parking lot and the airtrain? The old and awful EWR terminal B? UA may command a premium compared to AA but the reality is terminal C at EWR is on par with AA’s MIA concourse D (i.e. not saying a lot).
Will be interesting to watch the trend lines over the next 1-3 months. Would anyone really be surprised if EWR was reduced a further 5-10%?
I have a feeling the letter was provoked by a number of cancellations by UA passengers traveling thru EWR. I know of one couple who changed their booking to Delta to avoid EWR for their Euro trip.
The wild card in all of this is the timely completion of the runway work.