An air traffic controller warned Friday that Newark Liberty International Airport is unsafe for travelers as it has been wracked by staffing deficits over the past week, according to MSNBC correspondent Tom Costello.
“He said, ‘It is not safe. It is not a safe situation right now for the flying public,’” Costello relayed of his conversation with the air traffic controller, which he described as “Really an incredible statement, unsolicited. He just said that to me, and separately: ‘Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs.’”
Flights to and from the busy airport just outside of New York City have been ravaged by multi-hour delays, which the Federal Aviation Administration said are being caused by a lack of air traffic controllers.
The FAA did not immediately return The Daily Beast‘s request for comment on MSNBC’s report about travel through Newark being unsafe.
United Airlines, which announced that it would cancel 35 of its daily flights from Newark beginning this weekend, put out a statement on Friday addressing the situation.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in the statement that more than 20 percent of controllers at the airport had “walked off the job.”
“Keep in mind, this particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years and without these controllers, it‘s now clear—and the FAA tells us—that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,” Kirby added.
In a news conference on Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called for more Americans to become air traffic controllers. He announced new incentives for doing so, such as a $5,000 bonus for those who make it through the academy.
“You’re starting to see cracks in the system,” said Duffy. “It‘s our job to actually see over the horizon what the issues are and fix it before there is an incident that we will seriously regret.”
Finding qualified applicants to become air traffic controllers—a stressful, high-pressure job with long hours—has long been a challenge. But the crisis has come to a head over the past few months as the Trump administration has shaken up the federal government.
During a closed-door Cabinet meeting in March, Duffy reportedly accused Elon Musk’s team at the Department of Government Efficiency of trying to fire air traffic controllers at the FAA, according to The New York Times.
Musk reportedly called the accusation a “lie,” leading to what was described as a heated back-and-forth between the two men.
Great work @elonmusk https://t.co/u7DK24ajFz
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) May 3, 2025
In response to the situation at Newark Airport, political commentator and former Barack Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer called out Musk, writing on X Saturday: “Great work @elonmusk.”
The FAA has been a political flashpoint since Donald Trump took office, amid a string of aviation disasters and near-misses, including the mid-air crash over Washington, D.C. that killed 67 in January.
In mid-February, the FAA announced that it had cut 400 employees, but Duffy said then that “zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.”
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