Staffing Issues at Newark May Trigger Delays at Other Airports in Region

Travel issues intensified at airports across the United States on Nov. 2 with one of the nation’s largest airports experiencing serious staffing issues that were expected to cause a domino effect of problems across the New York City area.

Newark Liberty International Airport—located 16 miles outside of the New York City borough of Manhattan—had ground delays of more than 3 1/2 hours on Nov. 2 because of staffing shortages and warned that travel would get “worse” throughout the evening, according to an advisory on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.

“Arrivals are being limited to as few as 20 planes per hour through this afternoon, with higher rates later tonight,” the New York City Emergency Management Department stated on X.

The agency warned that delays at Newark, the busiest airport in the New York City metropolitan area, often spread into John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, both in the borough of Queens.

“Travelers flying to, from, or through NYC should expect schedule changes, gate holds, and missed connections,” the agency stated. “Anyone flying today should check flight status before heading to the airport and expect longer waits.”

The advisory also suggested that much longer delays will occur once the agency updates its runway release time notices for airlines. In the comment section of the advisory, officials acknowledged that “worse times” were expected later in the day, again because of ongoing staffing problems.

Some departures and arrivals into Newark Liberty International Airport had a maximum delay of 14 hours.

At least 118 flights bound to or departing from Newark were cancelled on Nov. 2, amounting to more than half of the cancellations across the United States. The same airport caused 59 percent of the U.S. flight delays on Nov. 2, according to data on the flight-tracking website Flight Aware.

San Francisco International Airport and Texas’s Austin-Bergstrom International Airport both issued ground stops before 2 p.m. ET after staffing issues caused ground delays ranging from 30 minutes to just more than an hour.

Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously suggested that these problems will continue and reiterated that the government will halt flights if needed.

“For those traveling in and out of Newark—expect significant delays. We HAVE to reduce flight volumes to MAINTAIN SAFETY,” he wrote in an X post on Nov. 2.

The Trump administration predicted on Oct. 30 that travel would worsen if the government shutdown continued during the holiday season.

“It could be a disaster; it really could be,” Vice President JD Vance said during a news conference at the White House after meeting with leaders in the aviation industry. “At that point, you’re talking about [how] people have missed three paychecks, they’ve missed four paychecks. How many of them are not going to show up for work?”

More than 13,000 air traffic controllers and thousands of transportation security officers missed their first full paycheck last week and continue to work without pay as lawmakers in Washington fail to reopen the government.

Senate Democrats have blocked Republican efforts to fund the government 13 times, pushing for extensions to expiring Obamacare subsidies to be added to a bill to reopen the government.

GOP lawmakers have rejected their demands and urged that a “clean funding bill” be passed immediately.

Officials with the Trump administration claimed that workers have already started taking second jobs and many could soon quit.