Air Traffic Controller Warns Newark Airport Unsafe for Travel

Newark Liberty International Airport is “not safe” for travelers, one air traffic controller at the delay-plagued travel hub reportedly warned.

“It is not safe. It is not a safe situation right now for the flying public,” the federal air safety employee reportedly told NBC News correspondent Tom Costello.

“Really an incredible statement, unsolicited. He just said that to me, and separately, ‘Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs,’” Costello recounted on MSNBC.

The airport, which served 49 million travelers in 2024 and is the second busiest in the New York City area, has been drowning in delays and cancellations for days.

Federal Aviation Administration has blamed a shortage of air traffic controllers at the airport, along with runway construction.

Newark has lost 20% of its air controllers in recent weeks, according to United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, who issued a statement Friday claiming they had “walked off the job.”

The situation has grown so dire that United Airlines — which uses the airport as its primary East Coast hub — announced it was cancelling 35 roundtrip flights daily, saying it was necessary “in order to protect our customers.”

“This particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it‘s now 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,” Kirby said.

And last week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a plea for more air traffic controllers – offering $5,000 bonuses for new hires and warning that the system was beginning to deteriorate.

“You’re starting to see cracks in the system,” Duffy in a press conference Thursday. “It‘s our job to actually see over the horizon what the issues are and fix it before there is an incident that we will seriously regret.”

Aviation safety has been a point of controversy since even before President Trump took office in January. As of September 2023, the FAA was nearly 2,000 air traffic controllers short of its staffing goal, according to the agency.

Just a month after Trump was sworn in, 400 FAA employees were cut, but Duffy said none were air traffic controllers or safety personnel.

Delays at Newark continued on Sunday, with inbound flights waiting more than two hours before being allowed to land, according to Flight Aware’s Misery Map.