Telecom Outage Halts Arriving Flights Newark Airport Over Hour

A telecom frequency outage led the Federal Aviation Administration to halt arriving flights at Newark Liberty International Airport for over an hour, causing significant delays ahead of the busy Labor Day weekend. Flights to Newark, a United Airlines hub, were paused with arrivals experiencing average delays of around 158 minutes as flights already en route were put on hold, while departures remained unaffected. This incident is the latest in a series of communication outages affecting air traffic controllers managing Newark's airspace, with previous disruptions in April and May prompting the FAA to impose flight cuts and propose extending them through late October. To address these challenges, the FAA relocated Newark's airspace control to the Philadelphia TRACON center last year and has upgraded communications technology, although staffing shortages for air traffic controllers persist. Additionally, Teterboro Airport, a private jet hub for New York City, also issued a ground stop during the disruption. The FAA is currently slowing inbound flights as it works to resume normal operations, highlighting ongoing concerns about the need to modernize the US air traffic control system.