Travelers at Newark Liberty International Airport faced another round of headaches on Thursday when a temporary ground stop suspended incoming flights for about an hour. The pause, which began around 11 a.m. and lifted shortly after noon, was triggered by an air traffic control communication breakdown, according to Federal Aviation Administration bulletins. Delays stretched beyond two hours for many passengers.
In response, the FAA moved to cut back Newark’s already strained flight schedule. The agency slashed the airport’s inbound capacity to 28 flights per hour through at least Friday, a steep drop from the usual 40 to 42 flights per hour. Newark had already been operating under a reduced limit of 34 flights in recent weeks.
“The FAA is pausing some flights into Newark Liberty International Airport due to equipment issues. We are investigating the cause,” the FAA said in a statement.
The latest glitch wasn’t isolated. It marked the second outage within 24 hours for controllers at the Philadelphia air traffic control center, which oversees Newark’s skies. On Wednesday evening, pilots reported losing contact as controller call signs cut out entirely.
These interruptions have become alarmingly familiar at Newark. On May 11, a telecommunications failure at the same Philadelphia TRACON facility forced a 45-minute ground stop. Just two days earlier, radar monitors went blank for about 90 seconds, prompting controllers to warn aircraft of possible communication problems. In late April, another outage knocked out both screens and radios, leaving controllers scrambling to manage traffic.
With one of the nation’s busiest airports now facing repeated technical lapses, passengers are bracing for further delays and disruptions as the FAA investigates the root cause.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.