“The FAA and DOT need to get their act together,” Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-5) said Thursday afternoon at a press conference.  According to the congressman, almost 20% of flights in the tri-state area have experienced delays, and only 1% of those have been weather attributed.  A shortage of air traffic controllers and other essential staff are part of the problem, but Gottheimer sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Holly Trottenberg, Acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, calling for some answers as travelers deal with a spate of delays that disrupt their plans.

“Nobody likes that,” Gottheimer said, “I’ve heard very clearly from my constituents about cancellations and massive cancellations which seem out of the … It hurts our families, our workers, and of course our economy, especially in North Jersey. In fact, the New York metropolitan area has the busiest airport system in the United States and the second busiest in the world, after London… Last month, cancellation delays impacted thousands of travelers. On a single day in June, nearly 30% of flights were canceled, and another 30% were delayed at Newark Liberty International Airport. Already this month, delays and cancellations of up ended the travel plans of hundreds of thousands more passengers. These are people going to see friends and family on their summer trips. Of course, you have work trips, so this impacts the economy and of course impacts people’s summers.  From July 2 to July 9, Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia, and JFK ranked top three for cancellations in the United States–something we don’t want to put on a bumper sticker.”

Gottheimer said that there is a shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers, which is part of the problem.  “We know that a report from the Transportation Department’s inspector general just last month found the Federal Aviation Administration did not have a plan to address a shortage of air traffic controllers.”  Gottheimer reported that there are about 11,500 air traffic controllers, but 14,500 are needed.  “It’s a pretty significant number when you think about it, and given how long it takes to train these folks, these air traffic controllers, it’s about a two year shortage of air traffic controllers again, a two year shortage, which you might imagine is really having an impact on the capacity that the skies can handle.”

With understaffing in the aviation sector, Gottheimer said that the FAA knew they were facing a crisis last year, and the problems are being seen now—and will continue for some time.  “The Inspector General put out a report recently admitting that the FAA knew they were going to have a problem this summer that could cause major delays. And what’s unbelievable is, they don’t seem to have had a plan for what to do about it. Right. They admit they don’t have a plan. So I think that was particularly jarring to me.”

With New Jersey families often planning out flights months in advance, the congressman said it was not fair for travelers to have to deal with repeatedly delayed flights and disruptions.  One constituent, he said, booked four flights for a trip, just in case.  That, of course, presents its own problems.

As Gottheimer prides himself on being a “problem solver” and said that he introduced language into the FAA re-authorization, which has passed the House and now must pass the Senate, that would require a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study as to the causes of flight delays in the tri-state region.  As an agency which requires renewal from time to time, Gottheimer said the legislation was a “must-pass” piece, otherwise the FAA would shut down. 

“The bill will hire and train air traffic controllers, it will help provide a pipeline of trained workers for pilots and aviation workers, and third, it includes investments in air traffic control technology and innovation. It also has other things including consumer protection, including meals, hotels, and child seating issues. It addresses certain sustainability issues regarding our environment, and airport noise issues. So those are the some of the major pieces of that FAA reauthorization bill that was passed the House today.”

Gottheimer mentioned as well that the further security implementations would be put into effect with the reauthorization.  “The House also passed in the legislation, the bipartisan Saracini Enhanced AviationSafety Act, which requires the installation of secondary cockpit barriers on all commercial passenger aircraft to prevent terrorist attacks similar to 9/11.”

This feature was the last recommendation to be implemented from the 9/11 Commission: a secondary barrier for cockpits so that a vulnerability is negated when the cockpit door is opened.  “This requires what looks like a chain link fence to come across as a secondary barrier,” Gottheimer said.

Post-pandemic flights have surged, the congressman said, and the understaffed FAA is struggling to deal with this, and Gottheimer said he worries that this could become, to use a pandemic-era phrase, a “new normal”—something he finds unacceptable.  “Folks shouldn’t have to put up with this,” he said.

“We need to know the specific causes of flight delays so that appropriate plans are put in place by the FAA and the Department of Transportation. Today, I’m also sending a letter to the FAA administrator and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg because the blame for the increase in delays and cancellations at tri-state airports doesn’t just fall on the airlines.”

Gottheimer’s questions to the DOT and FAA ask what can be done in the short-term to alleviate the problem with flight delays, but also what kind of longer-term, systemic issues need to be addressed.  He also warned that these kind of problems are not likely to have a quick and easy fix.  “You have to understand, are there big systemic issues here that we can get to the bottom of.  Obviously, we hopefully can get past this summer issue that we faced last summer, too. But then say we get into the fall and things ease up, I don’t want to be back in the soup here and people just expect this as the way it is every summer. It shouldn’t be.”