New York Airport Operations Resume After Northeast Tech Outage

Flights at airports across the New York City region were operating Tuesday, though travelers continued to face delays and cancellations after a communications failure at a major air traffic control center in Philadelphia disrupted service for hours. The damaged lines were later restored.

The disruption led to hundreds of cancellations across the U.S. Northeast on Monday, including more than 600 flights arriving at or departing from Newark Liberty International Airport. Every major airport serving the New York City area was affected. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said online that clearing the backlog of delays would take time even after repairs were completed.

Early Tuesday, Newark recorded roughly 40 delays and almost 60 cancellations, according to FlightAware, a global flight-tracking and aviation data service.

The Philadelphia Federal Aviation Administration facility lost its main communications circuit Monday. Its backup fiber-optic connection was also unavailable after it was accidentally cut by workers involved in railroad construction. The failures left air traffic controllers without radar and communications capabilities for several hours.

Newark’s commercial air traffic nearly came to a halt for much of the day. Flightradar24 reported that no commercial flights landed at the airport from approximately 9:40 a.m. until shortly after 5:20 p.m. local time.

Philadelphia International Airport saw more than 200 cancellations involving incoming and outgoing flights. LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports in New York were also affected, although service began returning Monday evening.

Several airlines offered passengers the option to rebook at no additional cost. The FAA urged travelers to verify their flight status before leaving for the airport.

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The outage came as President Donald Trump and a number of international leaders traveled to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney missed a Monday event connected to the gathering because of the aviation disruptions, though his office said he reached New York later that night.

The latest technical failure occurred at the same Philadelphia FAA center linked to widespread problems at Newark last spring.

Regional air traffic control centers rely on two separate connections to transmit radar and communications data: a primary circuit and a backup line. The FAA said the primary circuit failed Monday morning, but the attempted switch to the backup revealed that the fiber-optic connection had been severed.

Duffy initially said an Amtrak construction team was responsible for the damaged line. Amtrak later identified a New Jersey Transit construction crew working in the area between Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey.

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AP reporters Rio Yamat and Jessica Hill contributed to this report from Las Vegas.