Never let a good crisis go to waste. Facing congestion and air traffic controller shortages, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is calling on the Trump Administration to reintroduce slot controls at Newark Liberty International Airport. It’s a move that seeks to stave off competition at Newark even as the carrier eyes a return to New York JFK.
United Airlines Cuts Flights At Newark, Blames FAA, Appeals To Trump For Help
It has been a rough week for United Airlines at its Newark (EWR) hub, with three consecutive days of delays exceeding 40% of flights. To complicate matters, United claims that 20% of air traffic controllers walked off the job this week, a claim that has not been substantiated in other media sources.
United took the rare action of publishing a note from Kirby on Friday concerning the issue:
For many years, United has been very clear and vocal about the need to fix the Air Traffic Control system in EWR. While we enthusiastically support the efforts underway to permanently and structurally fix the FAA, the long-simmering FAA challenges boiled over this week.
In the past few days, on more than one occasion, technology that FAA air traffic controllers rely on to manage the airplanes coming in and out of Newark airport failed – resulting in dozens of diverted flights, hundreds of delayed and canceled flights and worst of all, thousands of customers with disrupted travel plans. Unfortunately, the technology issues were compounded as over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job. Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it’snow clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead.
United is committed to doing absolutely everything in our power to minimize the impact that this will have on customers and so we are unilaterally cancelling 35 roundtrip flights per day from our Newark schedule starting this weekend. It’s disappointing to make further cuts to an already reduced schedule at Newark, but since there is no way to resolve the near-term structural FAA staffing issues, we feel like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers.
These challenges are not new to Newark. United has been urging the US government for *years* to use its authority to effectively limit the number of flights to what the airport can realistically handle. Past failure to make those changes had led to the circumstances that United and, most importantly, our customers now face.
I spoke with Sec. Duffy this afternoon and appreciate his immediate response to my call. We’re pleased that the new administration has put together a proposal for a large, systemwide investment in FAA technology, infrastructure and staffing. In the medium to long term, it’s the only way to solve the systemwide problem. Now, we’re encouraging them to apply this decisive leadership to the difficult situation they inherited at Newark, too – by designating it as a slot controlled, Level 3 airport.
Newark is an incredible airport and takes our customers to 76 different US cities and 81 international destinations. I want to thank the dedicated United team that’s been working hard – especially over the last few days – to take care of our customers at this difficult time. There are also highly skilled professionals at the FAA, including air traffic controllers, who are persevering through technology and staffing shortfalls to ensure that the tens of thousands of people traveling through Newark every day get to their destinations safely. By using the authority it has, the FAA can help Newark fulfill its incredible potential to be a safe, reliable and efficient gateway to the world for the American traveling public.
There’s a lot here to unpack.
Newark Is A Problem, But United Wants To Turn Lemons Into Lemonade
Here are my thoughts on the memo:
- Kirby is continuing to court the Trump administration by saying “they inherited” the problem, even though the problem preceded the Biden administration (no meaningful work on the issue), the first Trump administration (no meaningful work on the issue), and even the Obama administration (no meaningful work on the issue)…Newark has been a mess for years, with administration from both sides failing to meaningfully fix it, or the wider problem of the outdated air traffic control systems and infrastructure in the USA.
- Cancelling 10% of flights immediately (35 flights per day) is a big deal…United knows it cannot continue to operationally perform so poorly in Newark and there is no other solution at this point other than to cut flights.
- The proposal to make Newark a Level 3 airport again (bringing back slot controls) is very self-serving and likely a bid block Delta Air Lines from ramping up service to EWR even as United has ambitious plans to return to New York JFK under a proposed partnership with JetBlue.
- I’m very surprised Air Traffic Controllers would just walk off the job…I would like to know more details.
- There’s also runway construction going on right now at EWR, which is more likely the immediate cause for the operational woes.
CONCLUSION
United is seeking to turn lemons into lemonade, even as it blames congestion and staffing shortages on its announcement that will immediately scale back flights by 10% in an effort to improve operations.
United is quite right to point out that the situation in Newark is unacceptable and I don’t fully blame United for scheduling too many flights: the airspace should be able to accommodate already pared-back traffic patterns, even when there is runway construction. While I also cannot blame United for opportunistic, the solution is not to cut off competition from EWR but to fix the air traffic control problem. Surely in a country that put a man on the moon, we can address congestion over New York City…
Newark will never get better. You can only stop it from getting worse.
I think this post doesn’t mention the current construction going on at one of the runways in Newark. Depending on the winds they will be down to one runway sometimes until the middle of June. That increases the delays significantly on rare days they can’t use 22L and 29.
Not to worry, DEI is gone. Any day now there is going to be a flood of straight white men that had been held out of ATC positions coming to the rescue
It takes a long time to weed out the diversity hires.
They can get violent when they are confronted with reality like most libs.
What does not having enough staff have to do with having diversity hires? your brain is mush
Don’t diss diversity hiring. Vance did diversity hiring when looking to marry someone
Not only does Bill accurately note that the root cause is a runway closure for reconstruction that has been scheduled for well long enough for UA to reduce its schedule.
Yes, the FAA issues are part of the issue – and there are controllers that said there were equipment failures impacting EWR or PHL tracon last week.
The simple question is whether UA reduced its capacity enough to account for the loss of a runway. We all get that no airline wants to slash their schedule during peak int’l travel months but you can only do major road and runway construction work during about half of the year in the north.
And let’s not forget that UA was slot-controlled until the Smisek era UA exec team failed to use EWR slots to FAA required levels so the FAA removed slot controls. Kirby himself inherited the competitive situation that exists in NYC including his own negotiation with DL that ended up with US giving DL half of the LGA slots that DL now has – and it was a gift given that AA-US had to divest the equivalent of the DCA portion of the slot deal.
EWR was never designed or is big enough to compete directly with JFK which has over twice as much space. Although JFK has 4 runways, it is effectively a 3 runway airport while EWR and LGA are both essentially 2 runway airports; LGA’s 2 runways intersect while EWR’s 2 primary runways are parallel but at very close distance (less than 1000 feet). Over the past year, JFK has only handled about 13% more flights than EWR.
The real issue for all of the NYC airports is that airspace for all 3 airports overlap and ATC does do a pretty good job of keeping not just the 3 big commercial airports operating but also general aviation airports including Teterboro which is physically bigger than LGA.
Technology will help reduce the need for additional aircraft spacing in bad weather but you can only move so many flights through a certain amount of airspace and runways at a time while maintaining safety.
The rest of the industry might be a tad sympathetic to UA’s operational challenges at EWR if Kirby and other UA execs weren’t continually talking about taking out other airlines and, more recently, figuring out a way to get back to JFK. There are multiple months that AA, DL, and NK have added a higher percentage of flights at EWR than UA. And at the hint of slot controls coming to EWR, every airline will add a bunch of flights to get grandfathered in and will muck up UA’s EWR operation forever. UA has the highest share of traffic at EWR of any airline at any NYC airport which is why the FAA is unlikely to lock in UA’s size advantage.
DL’s strategy of having hubs at 2 of the 3 NYC airports is proving to be better not only in terms of operational risk avoidance but also by being able to schedule more flights than UA does with its one hub airport strategy.
These operational issues will give way to the usual mess that is EWR when the rebuild runway reopens. There is no reason to add slot controls to fix a problem that could have been solved by a more drastic reduction in UA’s schedule at EWR.
DL and airlines that operate from JFK and LGA will just widen their share of NYC traffic for a couple months.
Yawn. Go be a cheerleader elsewhere you bum.
I cheerlead for facts and the truth.
nothing else
@ Tim — Those JFK slots are going to come in very handy it ending DLs clear anti-competitive, illegal position in NYC. Hopefully Level 3 slot controls are returned to EWR, too, to keep DL away. United will survive the current mess and come out kicking DL’s butt. They will thrive thanks to the huge B6 operations they’ll soon acquire at JFK and BOS, plus their ability to massivly expand capaity at IAD. Go UNITED!
Gene,
first, DL has the lowest percentage of slots at LGA and JFK of either AA at DCA or UA did at EWR when the slot restrictions were pulled there for underutilization.
Second, JFK slot controls were removed post 9/11 for a period and DL added flights which began grandfathered. Any airline could have added flights but DL was the only one smart enough to see the opportunity.
Most of DL’s JFK slots were gained during the period when there were no slot controls were in place.
and the last chunk of slots that DL gained was from the DL-UA EWR-JFK slot deal and the DOJ blocked the EWR/UA half of the transaction because UA was already above 70% of EWR flights at the time.
so, no, Gene, actually history and fact shows that you are wrong.
DL has actually acquired and managed its slot portfolio according to FAA regulations, something neither AA or UA have done. THAT is why DL has the largest number of federal airport slots.
@ Tim — I don’t read your comments. Same old nonsense. Delta’s peak is past.
@ Tim — Oh, and how about that 43% 12-month increase in UA stock price vs -15% for DL. Who’s winning under your definition? I’m sure you’ll change the defnition…
you clearly do read and you desperately want to write something to deflate the reality that DL is still at the head of the industry.
DL as a company is still worth 20% than UA.
and when UA gets around to paying its employees industry leading pay as Kirby promises, UA’s profits will fall. almost 40K UA employees – FAs and mechanics – are working after their contracts became amendable 25k more employees in 4 workgroups will have amendable contracts by the summer.
and AA is suing the City of Chicago for its handling of the gate reallocation process at ORD.
On top of the chaos at EWR, UA just might be facing a bit more turbulence than the rest of the industry
So Kirby wants to have a controlling interest in the NYC market and simultaneously add slot controls to keep anyone else out. What a weasel. I don’t expect saints to be running major airlines but his behavior is particularly odious.
Exactly.
I support UA because Kirby supports Trump.
@ Tim – I already read enough of your crap long ago to know how misguided you are. I suppose you think oil companies are better run than solar companies because they make more money. Money is not the only thing that matters in the world. In fact, it matters very, very little.
@ AndyS — I thought you were dead. Oh, well.
Not as dead as the BLM terrorist movement. I guess the grift ran its course or people see that the police statistics are justified based on the behavior of a certain demographic.
@ AndyS — The graft train has stopped alright, right at 1600 Pennsyvlvania Ave. You’ve got to be a completely ignorant person to not see that our government is now run by mobsters, incompetents, and crooks.
@ Mathhew — Where is the new UA schedule load?? Are they just gonna continue randomly screwing people rather than actually instituting a new schedule? This is wholly anacceptable, remniscent of the hell of summer 2023.