The closed runway at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey could reopen as early as next week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday.
During an interview with "Fox & Friends" in which he was confronted about hourslong delays at airports in New Jersey and New York, Duffy said “improvements are coming.”
Duffy said the delays at Northeast airports are a result of seasonal bad weather, a limited number of air traffic controllers and the closed runway at Newark.
The runway at Newark's airport has been closed since April 15 for rehabilitation and repaving and to upgrade to its lighting and signage.
During a news conference Wednesday, Duffy said reopening the runway would allow Newark Liberty to increase the number of departures and arrivals from 28 to 34 planes per hour. The Federal Aviation Administration decreased traffic at the airport from 54 flights per hour to 28 earlier this month following a series of brief telecommunications and radar outages in April and early May in which planes lost contact with air traffic controllers.
On Friday, Duffy acknowledged that the FAA is down about 3,000 air traffic controllers nationally.
Newark airport has 22 certified air traffic controllers, five of whom have taken trauma leave and another who is on medical leave, the Transportation Secretary said Wednesday. Sixteen experienced air traffic controllers are currently being trained in the Newark airspace and will take time to come up to speed, but Duffy insisted the number of controllers was sufficient for the number of flights at Newark.
Once the runway is reopened, Duffy said Newark will maintain its reduced flight schedule of 34 planes per hour until October, when the new air traffic controllers are added to the airspace.
“The Port Authority has crushed it on speed,” Duffy said Friday of the interstate organization that is doing the runway construction work.
Originally scheduled for completion in mid June, the agency has been working seven days a week, 16- to 18-hour days to finish. The concrete has already been laid, and the runway is being striped.
