Don’t look now, but things are starting to get back on track at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). Construction on the airport’s busiest runway wrapped up earlier this week, 13 days ahead of schedule.
“The airport’s runway construction project is now complete,” said Jon Gooda, United’s vice president of airport operations in a letter to United customers. “That means all runways at Newark are open, and we’re confident that will lead to even better on-time performance for our airline.”
That, combined with a reduced schedule and patches to air traffic control communications, should stem the worst disruptions that plagued travelers last month, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Monday — speaking alongside Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, which operates a major hub at Newark.
Now, Kirby noted, customers may have incentive to return to the busy airport: “The fares are better than they’re probably ever going to be in the years,” he claimed Monday.
He’s not wrong. Our partners at Points Path found cash prices on some Newark flights down by as much as 12% compared to last summer, setting up a potential decision — would a cheap flight deal be enough to get you back to the airport?
A tumultuous month
Passengers faced thousands of flight cancellations and delays in late April and May, owing to a trio of problems that compounded at EWR: Federal Aviation Administration tech outages, air traffic control staffing shortages, and the ongoing runway rehabilitation project.
The travel woes caused mass headaches for passengers, with hourslong delays common in the terminal, on the taxiways, and in the air, and airlines offered travelers flexibility to change their tickets.
Though United, the U.S. Department of Transportation and experts I spoke with all insisted safety was never at risk, large sums of travelers opted to avoid Newark and fly out of a different airport in the region.
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Are things getting better at Newark?
It’s far too early to promise a smooth-sailing summer at the New Jersey hub, particularly with the hurdles travelers can face when afternoon thunderstorms pop up. But there are some encouraging signs the worst problems we saw in May could — at least for now — be behind us.
Late last month, the FAA said it would reduce the number of hourly flights allowed at Newark, hoping to bring the takeoff and landing schedules to a more manageable rate. United, by far the airport’s biggest carrier, praised the move.
Then, on Monday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — which governs EWR — marked the end of the runway construction project that had been slated to run through June 15. Meanwhile, the DOT expects patches meant to shore up communications at the Philadelphia FAA facility that runs Newark’s airspace should be online in the coming weeks.
“Everyone who touches the problem is giving their full-hearted effort, they’re leaning into the problem, and helping fix the problem,” Duffy said at a news conference Monday.
Making progress
The numbers are improving. On Sunday, around a fifth of flights inbound to Newark were delayed, according to FlightAware — not insignificant, but far better than the 40-50% of flights that were routinely late getting to the gate in May. Just 18% of flights to Newark were late on Monday — better than several other U.S. airports arrival rates.
Helping matters, Duffy and Kirby argued, are the reduced schedules airlines will operate at EWR through late October. Between June 15 and Oct. 26, the FAA will limit takeoffs and landings to just 68 hourly (34 takeoffs and 34 landings). Historically, the airport has had the capacity for as many as 77 total aircraft movements per hour during peak periods.
United expects to fly around 380 daily departures this summer, the airline said late last month. That’s down about 7% from the 410 it had originally planned. The carrier, Kirby noted Monday, has already removed flights from its summer schedule, so customers shouldn’t see additional cancellations as a result of the reductions.
“If you’re buying a ticket this summer, you can have confidence that that’s the schedule,” Kirby said, while predicting that Newark would be the “most reliable” airport in the New York City area over the coming months.
Cheap flights available?
Kirby also made a not-at-all-subtle overture to woo flyers back to the airport with the possibility of cheap flights, owed to discounting after the carrier got “well behind” on its Newark bookings.
“That means more seats are available,” Kirby said — and if you’re an airline, you’re typically better off selling a seat on the cheap than letting it fly empty. “So now’s the time to book your vacation. If you want to go to Europe, or you want to head across the country, now’s the time.”
The data suggests ‘Newark discounts’ are happening
There’s merits to Kirby’s claims, especially when it comes to one-way bookings out of Newark.
One-way domestic flights on United out of EWR are down 8.6% versus last summer, according to data made available Tuesday through TPG’s collaboration with Points Path, a free web browser extension that shows points and miles award prices in Google Flights along with the cash fares.
One-way international flights on United are down even more sharply, by over 12%.
Here are some of the other trends we’re seeing:
- One-way domestic bookings on other airlines besides United were down 12% versus last summer, and by 10% for international flights. Award rates for both types of bookings were down around 8%.
- Round trips out of Newark on both United and other airlines were cheaper than last summer, but the difference from last year was less pronounced than one-way fares.
Keep in mind, Points Path had already noted fares across the board were down this summer nationwide — though award rates were running far closer to last year.
Should I fly out of Newark?
All things considered, I’d have few qualms about flying out of Newark if a flight or itinerary out of that airport was significantly cheaper or more convenient for me than another airport in the region. In fact, I’m planning to do just that in about 10 days.
If there was one thing I’d remain a little cautious about, at least for the early part of summer, it’d be starting my trip at Newark, then connecting somewhere else. So, if you’re on the fence about flying out of Newark, maybe err on the side of a nonstop flight.
I’d also be sure to book my flight with a card that has travel insurance protections, so that I’d have a chance at reimbursement if I got stranded for any reason; personally, I typically book my flights with The Platinum Card® from American Express.
You can find some of TPG’s favorite cards that carry such protections here.
Long-term hurdles remain
Despite the recent progress in getting Newark flight operations closer to “back on track,” long-term hurdles remain. Six of 22 full-certified air traffic controllers at the FAA’s Philadelphia center — nearly 28% — have been on leave since a particularly stressful tech outage in April.
Fully solving a larger nationwide shortage of controllers is a multi-year process, as I explained in an in-depth story earlier this year.
“You can’t snap your fingers and make it happen really quickly,” Duffy acknowledged this week.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has proposed billions of dollars in upfront funding to overhaul the nation’s ATC infrastructure, a proposal widely praised by the airline industry.
That money for the FAA is folded into a larger funding bill — which includes a wide range of other Trump administration priorities — that passed the House last month and now sits with the Senate.
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