Newark Liberty Airport turned into a scene of pure travel mayhem yesterday — with furious passengers stranded, flights delayed for hours, and tempers flaring — after a critical FAA equipment failure brought the busy East Coast hub to a screeching halt.
According to reports, an outage at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control Center — which manages a huge chunk of Newark’s air traffic — forced the FAA to issue a ground stop, halting all incoming flights and leaving thousands of passengers trapped in terminals and planes like sitting ducks.
The delays were nothing short of a nightmare. Departures were pushed back an average of 3.5 HOURS, while arrivals suffered nearly an hour’s delay. For travelers expecting a smooth ride, it quickly turned into a full-blown horror show, with some flights rerouted hundreds of miles away — because Newark just couldn’t cope.
United Airlines, Newark’s biggest player, took a brutal hit. Sources revealed that at least 35 of their flights had to be diverted, while hundreds more were left stranded, delayed, or straight-up canceled. Furious customers took to social media, posting viral videos of endless queues, abandoned gates, and emotional meltdowns straight out of a disaster movie.
As first reported by Reuters, the FAA scrambled to fix the tech issues — but insiders claim it wasn’t just a glitch. Chronic staffing shortages among air traffic controllers made an already disastrous situation ten times worse. And here’s the kicker: the FAA is reportedly short over 3,500 controllers nationwide.
The timing couldn’t be worse. With summer travel season heating up, United Airlines and others have been publicly slamming the FAA for months, warning about staffing nightmares and travel disruptions — and yesterday’s chaos just gave them a giant “told ya so” moment.
If you’re planning to fly through Newark anytime soon… brace yourself. Travelers are still fuming, airlines are scrambling, and the system is teetering on meltdown mode.
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