Shortage Of Air Traffic Controllers In Newark Earns Lawmaker’s Wrath

NEWARK, NJ — As the Christmas holiday approaches, it’s one of the busiest times of the year for air travelers in New Jersey. And that’s why it’s a good time to sound the alarm on a troubling shortage of air traffic controllers, U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer says.

On Tuesday, Gottheimer (NJ-5) paid a visit to the control tower at Newark Airport, where he met with James Lovett, the local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

The situation is so dire that at control towers for Newark, JFK and La Guardia airports, staffing is at just 54 percent — more than 30 percent below the minimum, Gottheimer said.

Here are three other statistics that should give air travelers reason to worry, he added:

• “We’re on track to gain fewer than 200 controllers in the next decade.”
• “According to the National Air Traffic Control Center Association President Rich Santa, there are currently 1,200 fewer fully certified controllers today than ten years ago. In that time, air traffic nationwide is up more than 32 percent.”
• “The situation is so dire that 77 percent of critical facilities are staffed below the Agency’s 85 percent threshold.”

How did we get here? According to Gottheimer, it can take more than three years to train a single controller. During the pandemic, a training hiatus caused a backlog that the nation is just starting to catch up to.

“On top of that, veteran controllers are leaving the FAA in significant numbers,” Gottheimer continued. “The result is a serious shortage of air traffic controllers at towers across the country, including at critical facilities like here in Newark.”

Meanwhile, air travelers have been seeing repeated flight delays and costly cancellations, the congressman added.

“New Jersey families who save their hard-earned dollars for trips should not have to face repeated flight delays and costly cancellations – and that’s especially true during the holidays,” Gottheimer said.

The good news? There’s a simple solution to a serious problem, he says.

“We need to hire and train more air traffic controllers ASAP,” Gottheimer urged. “That’s the only way to get more planes in the air safely and stop the delays.”

According to Gottheimer, there is a potential roadblock developing in Congress that might halt critical Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investments needed to fix the problem. And lawmakers need to put together a bipartisan blueprint with “predictable funding” to ensure that doesn’t happen, he said.

Gottheimer flagged for the House Transportation and Infrastructure and Senate Commerce leadership a bipartisan letter he signed earlier this month, which demanded that any FAA funding bill passed by Congress include hiring the maximum number of air traffic controllers. The congressman is also sponsoring legislation that would require a GAO study of flight delays at Tri-State Area airports in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

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