Updated May 7, 2025 at 12:09 PM MDT
Hundreds of flights were delayed and cancelled at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday. The Newark airport was dealing with bad weather, staffing shortages, outdated infrastructure, and the airport's busiest runway being closed for renovations until June. The situation reached a critical point after a radar and communications blackout on April 28 left air traffic controllers at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), which manages Newark arrivals and departures, unable to see or communicate with a plane for up to 90 seconds.
Following that incident, some air traffic controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON took time off due to the stress and trauma the situation caused, according to a statement shared with NPR from the Federal Aviation Administration and National Air Traffic Controllers Association. On Monday, Newark reported that more than 424 incoming and outgoing flights were delayed and 160 flights had been cancelled. The flight problems continued into Tuesday, with more than 370 flights into and out of Newark being delayed and more than 500 were cancelled, according to a flight-tracking website, FlightAware.
During an appearance on The Story with Martha MacCullum on Fox News on Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stressed that outdated technology is a major factor in the issues affecting the nation's air traffic control systems.
"What we have right now is the old-school flip phone. You can't update the flip phone, Martha. You can send as many updates as you want but it doesn't update," Duffy said. Paul Rinaldi, vice president of safety and operations at Airlines for America and a former traffic controller, told Morning Edition that Duffy equating current airport technology to a flip phone is "a very fair comparison."
"It's archaic when you think about the technology that's out there that's being used around the world," Rinaldi added. "He's exactly right. We have to upgrade the system."
Duffy is expected to announce a major overhaul of U.S air traffic control on May 8, a move aimed at updating the outdated infrastructure that contributed to chronic delays and staffing across the country.
Rinaldi spoke with NPR's A Martinez about the compounding issues impacting airlines and the Federal Aviation Agency and what steps should be taken to modernize U.S. air traffic systems.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Martinez: There is a big overhaul that's coming to airport technology. What would be the number one upgrade you think is the most critical?
Rinaldi: Well, there's multiple things that Secretary Duffy needs to start with. Obviously hiring more air traffic controllers would help immediately and they are really focused on putting around 3,000 air traffic controllers through the academy this year. In addition, he spoke about copper wires, you want to make sure that we can get fiber optic wires throughout our entire system. Unfortunately, the Newark failure that we had the other day is not the only failure. We have failures throughout the system with these archaic copper wires all the time.
Martinez: Is that a fair comparison, that the U.S air traffic control system is like a flip phone?
Rinaldi: It's a very fair comparison. If you look at the technology we're using, most of it is from the late 1980s to the 1990s. We still use floppy disks to update our information system. We still have paper strips that we walk around the tower cab with, that each controller writes something on and then hand it to the next controller. It's archaic when you think about the technology that's out there that's being used around the world. He's exactly right. We have to upgrade the system.
Martinez: How did it get this way? Because, people had to have known right after a few years that the system was falling behind and wasn't as up to date as it can be?
Rinaldi: Yeah, it's been decades in the making. There's been a lot of bells that have been rung, that we must do better. Really, there's a lot of blame to go around. But when you look at the funding structure for our aviation system, you can't have these threats of government shutdowns and these government shutdowns continuously to negatively impact the aviation system. And that's what's been happening since basically 2008. We've watched the FAA go through either shutdowns or threats of shutdowns at an average of three times a year. That puts the hiring, the training and modernization back on its heels every three to four months.
Martinez: So that's the consequences, right? That people can't modernize, people can't get hired. We are stuck in time when it comes to the air traffic control system?
Rinaldi: Yeah, our air traffic control system is high functioning, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It doesn't need to be interrupted by the threats of government shutdowns. It needs to have stable, predictable funding so we can continue to modernize the system and give the American people the best, safest system in the world.
Martinez: United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby put out a message to customers last week saying 20% of Newark controllers "walked off the job." Given your background, is that an accurate description of what really happened?
Rinaldi: I'm not exactly sure what happened that day. I've heard anything from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. It is very concerning that if a controller can't confirm exactly where that airplane is on the radar scope, if the scope is freezing or jumping along with static on a frequency where you can't accurately communicate with the pilots, it becomes very nerve wracking to air traffic controllers.
Martinez: People fly and they're going to keep flying, and it is a very safe way to travel overall. But have you gotten a sense from people that the trust in the airline business at all components is maybe not as strong as it used to be?
Rinaldi: Aviation is the safest form of transportation by far. So flying is safe. The fact that we're experiencing these delays in Newark, obviously, there's construction on the airport that has a negative impact on how many airplanes you can depart and arrive at. So what happens is the system slows down so that we ensure the safety of the system in the flying public.
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