What to know about flight delays and cancellations at Newark airport

NEWARK N J AP Flight delays and cancellations persisted at Newark Liberty International Airport Monday with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for an examination into the chaos sparked by an air traffic controller shortage and thick cloud cover Schumer a Democrat from New York revealed he wants an inspector general s examination into the delays and cancellations to prevent them from getting worse or spreading New Jersey Democratic Gov Phil Murphy called the delays comprehensively and utterly unacceptable in a post on X and disclosed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is committed to hiring more air traffic controllers The delays at the busy airport outside New York City made headlines over the weekend as United Airlines declared it was cutting daily flights from its schedule As of Monday the Federal Aviation Administration attributed arriving flight delays of nearly four hours to a combination of staffing and cloud cover Here s a closer look at what to know about the delays What s behind the delays at Newark The airport faced disruptions last week as well United CEO Scott Kirby mentioned in a letter to customers over the weekend that the hardware used to manage planes at the New Jersey airport failed more than once in latest days The flight delays cancellations and diversions that the equipment problems caused were compounded when more than one-fifth of Newark s traffic controllers walked off the job he noted Faulting the Federal Aviation Administration s alleged failure to address long-simmering challenges related to the air-traffic control system United Airlines cut daily flights from its Newark schedule starting Saturday Messages seeking comment were left with the air traffic controllers labor union and the federal Transportation Department which oversees the FAA What s the broader issue with air traffic control The Trump administration has mentioned an obsolete air traffic control system demands to be fixed The administration says it s been trying to supercharge the air traffic controller workforce and address the nation s shortage of controllers U S Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy last week released a campaign to recruit new controllers and give existing ones incentives not to retire The National Air Traffic Controllers Association a workers union mentioned at the time that those moves could help address staffing shortages but it also noted the system is long overdue for innovation and infrastructure upgrades Uncertainty at play United s decision to pare back its flight schedule in Newark comes at an already uncertain period for U S airlines Feasible customers across the industry are reconsidering whether to fly for work or for vacation given all the unknowns about what President Donald Trump s contract war will do to the economic system Uncertainty is so high that United in the last few days made the distinctive move of offering two separate forecasts for how it could perform financially this year one if there were a recession and one if not United flies to U S cities and international destinations from Newark