Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, placed the blame on the Biden administration for the recent disarray seen at Newark Liberty International Airport. He accused them of mishandling the relocation of air traffic control from New York to Philadelphia that occurred last year.

Duffy pointed fingers at his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, for failing to ensure a seamless transfer of Newark’s airspace to the problematic Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (Tracon) in July 2024. This oversight led to issues that caused disruptions on both Friday and Sunday when there were outages in the air traffic control equipment.

To address the situation, Duffy’s team implemented a software update aimed at providing a backup data feed to prevent complete radar and communications shutdowns that have occurred twice in recent weeks, thereby averting potential major crises.

He said he is working with Verizon and L3Harris to speed up the installation of additional fiber optic data feeds between New York and the Philly Tracon, which would also buttress the system.

That, fix, however, will not happen until the end of May at the earliest.

Additionally, Duffy faulted the “Biden-Buttegieg administration” for failing to upgrade the Philly Tracon with the modern Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) — which is used at major air traffic control centers around the US, including in New York.

A STARS system will be added to Philly, but Duffy did not say how long that will take.

The transportation secretary added that he will be meeting with all major airlines on Wednesday to schedule reduced traffic at the New Jersey airport, with officials saying arrivals would be reduced to 56 per hour, down from up to 80.

“Families shouldn’t have to wait four or fire hours for flights that never take off,” Duffy said.