United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said flights out of New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport this summer will be the cheapest in the airline’s history as the airport recovers from air traffic control outages and faces limited capacity with one runway under construction.
Kirby said passengers can expect the highest on-time performance at Newark compared to all the New York area airports this summer because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reduced the number of arrivals and departures at the airport to help manage delays and ensure safety. He also said passengers should expect a big discount given that the carrier lost a lot of bookings.
“There’s a lot more seats available, it’s going to be the cheapest it’s probably ever going to be in history,” Kirby said Thursday at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything event. “I don’t really like that, but you ought to book, and it’s going to be the least crowded,” Kirby said.
Newark is a major hub for the carrier as it operates nearly 70% of the airport’s flights. However, after the outages began, the carrier announced it was cutting 35 round-trip flights per day to ensure safety and reliability for flights that remain on schedule.
As of Friday, United said it is flying about 293 flights daily from Newark. It will rise to 380 daily flights once the runway construction is finished. For comparison, last summer it operated about 400 daily flights.
The chief executive noted that the carrier is facing some short-term pain, but Kirby believes the efforts by the FAA to ensure the number of flights equals the capacity of the airport will be beneficial in the long term.
Since the end of April, the Philadelphia TRACON Area C, the facility that guides flights into and out of Newark, has suffered several outages, causing major travel disruptions at the second-busiest airport in the New York airport system.
The issues also brought into focus how the air traffic control system has been under immense pressure due to staffing shortages, outdated technology and underinvestment in critical infrastructure.
Newark’s challenges have been further strained by ongoing construction at the airport, which leaves it temporarily operating with only one of two parallel runways.
Last week, the FAA issued a temporary order reducing the flight arrival and departure rate at the airport to 28 arrivals and 28 departures per hour until construction affecting the runway is completed. Daily construction is estimated to be largely complete on June 15. From there, the airport will have 34 daily arrivals and departures until Oct. 25.
During normal circumstances, Newark typically handles 77 total flights per hour.
“Our goal is to relieve the substantial inconvenience to the traveling public from excessive flight delays due to construction, staffing challenges, and recent equipment issues, which magnify as they spread through the National Airspace System,” acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau said in a statement.
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