Ground stop briefly issued at Newark airport after weeks of travel chaos

A ground stop at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey was lifted Sunday after being issued earlier in the morning, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, in the latest in a series of issues that have plagued the airport over the last few weeks.

“The FAA briefly slowed aircraft in and out of the airport while we ensured redundancies were working as designed. Operations have returned to normal,” the FAA said in a statement on X.

The FAA did not elaborate on why the ground stop was issued at 8:15 a.m. local time, but said there was a telecommunications issue at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, a traffic control facility that guides flights in and out of Newark. The facility previously had an outage on April 28, which was the catalyst for major delays at the travel hub.

Newark airport said the ground stop was due to “FAA equipment outages” and has since been lifted.

During last month’s outage, air traffic controllers in TRACON Area C lost communication with aircraft traveling to and from the airport, making them unable to see, hear or talk to them, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).

It’s not clear what caused the communication loss, or how long the air traffic controllers lost communication with the aircraft.

The event led the air traffic controllers to take leave under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, which covers federal employees who are physically injured or experience traumatic events on the job, according to NATCA, a union that represents around 20,000 aviation professionals.

Since the incident, delays and cancellations of flights traveling into and out of Newark airport have been constant. Airlines, including United, have had to cancel hundreds of flights, and dozens of others have been diverted to other airports.

Many issues contributed to the disruptions, including understaffing, construction and several instances of technical equipment failure.

In an exclusive interview with “Meet the Press,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he is concerned about the whole of U.S. airspace after recent outages at Newark, adding that telecommunications issues and glitches in software are to blame.

“Now I think the lights are blinking, the sirens are turning, and they’re saying, ‘Listen, we have to fix this,’” he said. “Because what you see in Newark is going to happen in other places across the country. It has to be fixed.”

Duffy said he believes they’ll have Newark airport “up and running in short order.”

Over 85 flights traveling to and from Newark were delayed, and more than 80 were canceled as of Sunday morning, according to FlightAware.com.

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