United cuts 35 flights out of Newark as staffing, technical problems cause hours-long delays

United Airlines says it's canceling 35 round-trip flights a day out of Newark Liberty International Airport starting this weekend, citing ongoing air traffic control personnel shortages.

In a letter to customers sent Friday, United CEO Scott Kirby said the Federal Aviation Administration’s longstanding staffing problems finally "boiled over" this week, as technological problems caused dozens of diverted flights, and hundreds of canceled and delayed ones. Kirby said 20% of the air traffic controllers walked off the job as well.

Kirby said United has been urging the federal government for years to limit Newark's flights to levels staff could handle, but hit a breaking point this week.

“This particular air traffic control facility has been chronically understaffed for years,” Kirby wrote. “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.”

The decision comes just weeks before Memorial Day, one of the biggest travel weekends of the year, and follows a rapid decline in service at one of the metro region’s three major airports. The New York Times reported Friday that Newark was operating essentially one runway in and out of the airport as passengers complained of missed flights and hours spent on the tarmac.

On Saturday, the FAA reported average delays in Newark of close to two hours. At 8 a.m. it cited the reason as “staffing." By 9 a.m. it had changed the reason to “other.”

When asked about the United decision a spokesperson for the federal agency declined to answer specific questions and referred Gothamist to a tweet by the agency saying it was being transparent about the outages.

The agency retweeted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy saying the delays were due to technological problems and calling for “an all-new air traffic control system” at the agency he governs.

Neither the posts nor the agency spokesperson mentioned the staffing shortages cited by Newark’s biggest airline.