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Travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport are facing a ninth day of massive delays, with some flights backed up more than five hours, as the nation grapples with a critical shortage of air traffic controllers. FOX 5’s Linda Schmidt reports live.
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We begin tonight with the overload at Newark Liberty International Airport
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At last check, according to FlightAware, the delays are stretching past the five-hour mark
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All right, our Linda Schmidt is live at Newark where the airport outrage shows. No signs of letting up. Linda
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That's for sure. Unfortunately, that's the news we have to bring you here tonight. This is day number nine of this chaos out here at Newark Liberty Airport
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Now, this is widespread cancellations and delays. And we have sound of air traffic controllers when they lost radar and radio communication
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with pilots. Now, their union saying they could not see the planes or talk to the pilots or hear
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the pilots, and that lasted up to 90 seconds. Go ahead. Take a listen. We lost our radar
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and it's not working correctly. Radar service terminates. Walk me as far. Freeze change approved
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If you want a Bravo clearance, you can just call the towers when you get closer. Okay. I'll wait
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for that frequency from you, okay? Okay. No. Just walk me as far. Look up the tower frequencies
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We don't have a radar, so I don't know where you are. And that blackout happened last Monday
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Newark Liberty is currently ground zero for a critical shortage of air traffic controllers although the problem does exist in most of the country And we spoke with a travel expert about this issue and the crisis earlier tonight
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A lot of them retire during COVID. You know, they have an age, you're at 56, you have to retire
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They can't get enough young people to take these jobs, to get them trained. And then once they do
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take the jobs, they're super stressed out and some of them quit. And as part of a short-term
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solution to all of this. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he is trying to encourage air
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traffic controllers not to retire. We've also done is controllers can retire after 25 years of
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service. And again, these are the best equipped controllers that we have. And so I've offered them
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a 20% upfront bonus of their salary to get them to stay on the job, not retire
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And Secretary Duffy also saying today that he is going to be making a big announcement this Thursday about the government's plan, intended plan rather, with some specifics on overhauling the air traffic control system across the country
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Steve, back inside to you. All right. Thanks, Linda
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