Transportation Secretary Duffy meeting with major airlines to discuss Newark Airport travel issues
NEWARK, New Jersey (WABC) -- U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is meeting with the major airlines on Wednesday in a renewed effort to address the ongoing issues at Newark Liberty International Airport.
There will not be a decision made at the end of the two-day meeting -- that will likely come at the end of the month. But this decision will have big implications for passengers as we head into the busy summer season.
Airlines like Delta, United and American will be speaking meeting with the FAA about realistically how many flights are feasible in and out of Newark.
Right now, there are about 77 flights in and out of Newark an hour.
The FAA is proposing limiting the number of flights in and out to 56 per hour -- 28 arrivals and 28 departures -- until June 15, which is when the construction on one of the airport's runways ends.
Then the FAA is suggesting bumping that number up a little to 68 flights an hour through October 25.
United Airlines was proactive and reduced its daily flights by 10 percent.
Problems at Newark emerged on April 28 when the radar and communications systems went offline briefly, leaving controllers unable to see or talk to the planes.
ALSO READ: Radar went black for air traffic controllers at Newark airport again
Since then there have been other incidents at Newark in the last several weeks caused by the air traffic controller staffing issues and technology issues.
The Deputy Chief Operating Officer with the FAA testified in front of the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday and said that the outages at Newark did not pose a significant threat.
"I don't believe there was a heightened significant danger to the flying public, but that being said, from where I sit, we want to remove all risk to the flying public and that is what's concerning to me is how do we remove any bit of that risk and we need to make sure our contingencies are better placed," Franklin J. McIntosh said.
McIntosh said since then corrective measures have been put into place "to ensure that those redundancies are better for that airspace."
"We haven't had a failure like this to this degree in my memory," he said.
The head of United Airlines tried to reassure air travelers on Tuesday that flying in and out of Newark is safe, in the wake of an FAA air traffic controller shortage and radar outages.
"It is safe across the country and the backup procedures keep it safe," United CEO Scott Kirby said.
In light of the recent issues, officials are actively increasing recruitment efforts and trying to retain existing air traffic controllers.
Duffy said Sunday that he also plans to raise the mandatory retirement age for air traffic controllers from 56 to 61, as he tries to navigate a shortage of about 3,000 people in that specialized position.
He plans to give those air traffic controllers a 20% upfront bonus to stay on the job. However, he says many air traffic controllers choose to retire after 25 years of service, which means many retire around the age of 50.
"These are not overnight fixes," Duffy said. "But as we go up, one, two years, older guys on the job, younger guys coming in, men and women - we can make up that 3,000-person difference."
Duffy laid out an extensive plan to replace the nation's outdated air traffic control system last week, including installing 4,600 new high-speed data connections and replacing 618 radars, but didn't put a price tag on the plan other than to say it will cost billions.
The FAA has installed new fiber optic lines at Newark airport and New York's Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports to replace old copper wires since the first outage, but plans to spend the next two weeks testing those new lines out before switching over to them.
The Trump administration said earlier this week that it was convening an emergency task force to prevent additional outages from happening again.
ALSO READ: Duffy vows to overhaul ATC system, fix problems at Newark Airport
ABC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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