United Airlines says its Newark hub is no longer in crisis mode.
After a series of harrowing incidents this spring, flight delays are back to normal and passengers are once again using Newark Liberty International Airport in roughly the same numbers as before the problems emerged, United said on Tuesday.
Newark, one of the New York area’s three main airports, struggled this spring when runway construction and air traffic control technology outages and staffing shortages caused acute delays in flights, frustrating passengers and raising concerns about the broader aviation system. On one particularly bad day in April, traffic controllers briefly lost all radar and radio contact with planes at Newark. The problems drove many people to avoid the airport, and United told investors that its Newark flights were about 15 percent less full after the disruptions peaked in April and May.
But the end of most runway construction work and limits on the number of flights imposed by federal regulators there have stabilized, according to United, which operates a large majority of the flights at Newark.
“Newark is operating better than ever and United’s future here is bright — that’s a credit to the thousands of Newark employees who deliver for our customers and one another every day,” United’s chief executive, Scott Kirby, said in a statement.
Mr. Kirby said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, finished the main phase of construction two weeks early and the Federal Aviation Administration has imposed flight limits that will stay in place through next summer and installed new air-traffic control technology.
Customer confidence in United and Newark has also bounced back. In May, the number of people flying to and from the airport was down more than 20 percent from the same month last year, according to Port Authority data. But by July, the latest month available, passenger traffic was down only about 5 percent from a year earlier.
United said six million people flew the airline out of the airport this summer, the most in its history. The airline also said that it planned to fly to 160 destinations this fall and winter from Newark. About two out of every three people who fly from the airport do so on United.
Bryan Bedford, the administrator of the F.A.A., joined United’s statement, saying, “This summer, the F.A.A. took immediate action to relieve substantial inconveniences to the traveling public — deploying a temporary satellite backup system, upgrading fiber optic technology, expanding high-bandwidth telecommunications, increasing controller staffing, and limiting arrivals and departures.”
United also said that it was doubling down on expanding service at Newark, with plans to hire more than 2,500 people to support its flights there.
Niraj Chokshi is a Times reporter who writes about aviation, rail and other transportation industries.
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