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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
United Airlines says Newark Liberty International Airport is
‘operating better than ever’
By Aaron Cooper, CNN
Updated:
12:17 PM EDT, Tue September 16, 2025
Source: CNN
United Airlines has completed an “operational turnaround” at Newark
Liberty International Airport after air traffic control problems and
construction led to thousands of canceled flights earlier this year.
“When the going gets tough, Newark gets going,” John Gooda,
vice-president of the United Newark Hub, told a gathering of hundreds
of employees in a hangar at the airport Tuesday. “It’s no secret to
the people in this room that Newark faced challenges earlier this year,
but despite those challenges, I knew in my heart that this team was
going to rise to the occasion.”
In April, the Federal Aviation Administration only had 24 “certified
professional controllers” at the facility that handles flights
approaching or departing Newark, but was supposed to have as many as
38.
took another hit during the busy afternoon on April 28, when
controllers lost radio communication with planes for 30 seconds and
could not see them on their radar scope for 90 seconds. As a result,
five controllers took 45-day government trauma leave, Two similar
happened over the following two weeks.
“It might not be your fault, but it is your problem, and that’s how
we own up to things that happen, sometimes even out of our control. And
the way that the Newark team handled our challenges that we had in the
early spring has been exactly like that,” Toby Enqvist, United’s
Chief Operations Officer said. “We’re on our way. We are not where
we want to be yet, but we are on our way to greatness.”
In May, the Federal Aviation Administration cut the number of flights
allowed to fly into the airport by about 25%, to 68 each hour, easing
the workload on controllers and runway congestion. Through next summer
the FAA plans to limit flights to 72 per hour, according to United.
“We’ve been begging the FAA to put slot controls on Newark for my
entire career,” Kirby told CNN’s Richard Quest Tuesday. “When you
have more flights than the FAA can handle at an airport, it leads to
delays.”
He said the restrictions put in place on the number of flights “are
why we just had the most reliable summer in the history of Newark
Airport.”
But despite limitations on the number of flights United could fly at
one of its key hubs, the airline was able to offer passengers more
seats in and out of Newark than in the past by using larger aircrafts.
August 16 was the busiest day of the year for the airline, carrying
650,000 customers in a single day, Enqvist said. “That’s like
carrying Detroit or everybody from Nashville in one day.”
Six million people flew United on time through Newark this summer, the
airline said in a statement, the most in the airline’s history.
Initially, Kirby said the airline lost a lot of bookings, making it
“It was a very real issue for our customers,” Kirby told CNN. “It
became very important to actually use that as the opportunity to
permanently make the changes here at Newark with the air traffic
control system and put Newark on an equal footing with LaGuardia and
JFK.”
Weekday runway construction ended on June 2 and a pair of new fiber
optic cables linking the facility with radar and communications
equipment in New York was also installed, aimed at increasing
reliability.
In the announcement, United said it was planning to add additional
flights out of Newark to six international destinations and five
domestic ones, as well as hiring 2,500 more staff based at the airport.
“There’s been tons and tons and tons of kind of negative news, but
this is great news. Great news for the airline, great news for the
industry, great news for the City of Newark today,” Newark, New
Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka said.
It’s not clear how the airline and the FAA will manage capacity with
the additional flights.
CNN’s Pete Muntean, Alexandra Skores and Chris Isidore contributed to
this report.
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