Newark airport finishes runway project early. Flight limits to lift soon

A construction project on one of Newark Liberty International Airport‘s three main runways wrapped up nearly two weeks early, so the Federal Aviation Administration expects to be able to ease flight limits next week despite the ongoing shortage of air traffic controllers.

Federal Transportation Department officials said Monday that some of the runway equipment must be tested before the FAA can increase the flight limits at the second busiest airport in the New York City area. The runway began to be used for departures Monday but won’t be available for arrivals until after that testing is completed early next week. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that if all goes well, the runway should be certified by June 10.

Crews worked day and night to complete the $121 million construction project 13 days ahead of schedule and ease some of the problems at the airport. But Newark has also been plagued by cancellations and delays this spring because of a shortage of air traffic controllers after the FAA had technical problems that twice briefly knocked out the radar and communications at a facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of the airport.

Five air traffic controllers went on 45-day trauma leaves after the first radar and communications outage at the Philadelphia facility on April 28, and another one is out on medical leave. That left the facility with only 16 certified controllers and five supervisors. Officials have said there are another 16 experienced controllers in training who should get certified sometime between now and October.

The FAA limited the Newark airport to 28 arrivals and 28 departures an hour last month because of the construction and staff shortages. The agency has said that it expects to be able to bump up the number of flights daily in Newark to 34 arrivals and 34 departures once the runway construction is done.

The controllers on trauma leave are scheduled to return around the middle of the month. But Duffy said the FAA has enough controllers now to handle the higher limit of 34 arrivals and departures per hour.

Before the air traffic control problems this spring, 38 or 39 flights typically took off and landed hourly at the Newark airport.

The FAA has said it will revisit the limits again in October because it hopes to have more controllers trained by then.

The government also upgraded the software at the air traffic control facility after a second radar outage on May 9. That helped prevent a repeat problem on May 11 when there was another problem with the lines carrying the radar signal down from New York.

Verizon has installed a new fiber optic line between Philadelphia and New York after the problems but that isn’t expected to go into service until July after testing is completed.

—Josh Funk, Associated Press