What we know about the massive staffing shortage that has caused 7 days of major delays at Newark Airport

By Chris Boyette and Pete Muntean, CNN

(CNN) — For years, the shortage of certified air traffic controllers in the US has led to flight disruptions and headaches for travelers across the country, most recently at busy Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, where staffing issues have led to major delays for an unparalleled seventh day in a row.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday implemented a Ground Delay Program until midnight ET. Flights are being delayed an average of two hours and 13 minutes, according to an advisory from the FAA.

Multiple accumulating factors seem to have caused the massive delays, including the nationwide air traffic controller shortage; a walk-off by Newark air traffic controllers this week, according to United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby; the closure of a runway for “rehabilitation work;” and unspecified technology failures.

The control facility responsible for traffic at Newark has been “chronically understaffed for years,” Kirby said in a Friday message addressing the delays.

One flyer, Geraldine Wallace, told CNN Sunday she is anxious about the staffing shortage after her flight was delayed for almost three hours.

“I hope it can be resolved,” she said.

Since Monday, the FAA has cited staffing as the cause of delays, but has not commented officially on the nature of the staffing problems at Newark Airport.

Here’s more on what we know about the historic delays.

What is the problem?

Just outside of New York City, Newark is typically a bustling airport, ranked the 14th busiest airport in the country in 2024, according to the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. It’s a major hub for United Airlines, which as of early Sunday afternoon had delayed 127 flights and canceled 20 more, according to the tracking website FlightAware, leaving passengers with only options to reschedule.

Kirby, the United Airlines CEO, said the airport’s issues seem to stem from a combination of technology failures and the fact that “over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR (Newark Liberty International Airport) walked off the job.”

On multiple instances in the past week, “technology that FAA air traffic controllers rely on to manage the airplanes coming in and out of Newark airport failed – resulting in dozens of diverted flights, hundreds of delayed and canceled flights and worst of all, thousands of customers with disrupted travel plans,” Kirby said.

The technology failures are compounded by the staffing shortage. The US needs more than 3,000 new air traffic controllers to reach adequate staffing, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union representing 10,800 professional controllers.

“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 said.

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents 55,000 flight attendants, called on all airlines operating out of Newark to cut planned flights due to the staffing shortage.

“We support every effort to secure the funding necessary to staff up and provide the resources that are a decade overdue for our air traffic controllers to be able to do their jobs,” Sara Nelson, international president of AFA-CWA, said in a statement.

The new staffing-related delays are just the latest development in problems plaguing the Newark airport as a busy summer travel season is fast approaching. Last July, the FAA relocated a key control facility responsible for Newark air traffic from Long Island to Philadelphia in hopes of enticing new hires to join the understaffed facility.

A CNN analysis of FAA airspace advisories shows at least 14 straight days of FAA-imposed delays for flights to or from Newark. The airport is also in the middle of a runway rehabilitation project that is regularly closing one of its main runways until mid-June.

The nationwide staffing shortage is nearly the worst in 30 years, Nick Daniels, president of the controllers union, testified before Congress in March.

The most recent data from the FAA shows across all airport towers and terminal approach facilities nationwide, only about 70% of staffing targets were filled by fully certified controllers as of September 2023. When controllers in training are included, that rose to about 79%.

Despite various initiatives to pick up the pace of hiring and increasing the starting salary for Academy trainees by 30%, hiring and retaining air traffic controllers is tough due to strict certification requirements and burnout due to long hours and the stressful nature of the job, in addition to outside factors like the economy and government shutdowns.

How bad is it?

Around a quarter of inbound and outbound flights at Newark were delayed as of Sunday afternoon, and almost 10% were canceled.

Wallace, a passenger whose flight was delayed while heading home to Canada, told CNN her outgoing flight from Newark was originally scheduled for 2:15 p.m. ET but was pushed until 5 p.m. ET.

Air traffic controllers “have the most critical job for our safety,” she said. “And so if they are understaffed and the people that are covering are going to be overtired, they’re doing longer shifts, as a flyer, that’s making me feel very nervous, actually.”

Her partner, Mark Wallace, said Sunday he was more worried about equipment failures than the staffing shortage.

“As concerning as the manpower issue is, according to news reports, the equipment that they’re using out of Philadelphia is antiquated,” he said. “That gives me probably even more concern.”

The decades-old staffing problem has experienced renewed public scrutiny after a series of collisions and near misses in the skies, including the January 29 midair collision of American Airlines Flight 5342 with a Black Hawk helicopter, which killed 67 people.

“We have a team up there right now. They’re doing an ongoing investigation into the technology, the interruption itself,” FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau said during a Thursday news conference announcing the Trump administration’s latest incentives to hire new air traffic controllers.

“At the end of the day, we need to make sure the controllers have the proper equipment and that they’re obviously appropriately staffed,” Rocheleau said.

The new incentives program will offer bonuses to students who successfully complete their training at the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, bonuses to new graduates training at hard-to-staff or high-cost-of-living programs, and 20% yearly bonuses to controllers who are eligible for retirement but stay on the job.

The FAA is using delays to slow the number of flights so the system remains safe, according to Rocheleau.

“You’re starting to see cracks in the system,” US Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said at the news conference. “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.”

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CNN’s Zoe Sottile, Leigh Waldman and Sabrina Souza contributed to this report.