During remarks on the Senate floor Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about major delays and mass cancelations at Newark Airport in New Jersey.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00On Newark Airport. For months, and now especially this week, Americans flying in and out of Newark
00:07Airport have experienced increasing delays and disruptions. Airlines are canceling flights.
00:13There's a shortage of air traffic controllers. They're relying on 1990s technology in 2025.
00:20One Newark air traffic controller even said that flying into Newark is, quote, not safe, unquote.
00:25Quote, keeping the flying public safe and our national airspace efficient is the responsibility of Donald Trump's FAA.
00:33They're failing spectacularly. So today I am demanding a full inspector general office investigation into what happened at Newark
00:42so these problems do not get worse or spread to other airports around the nation.
00:47I'm demanding that the office, the OIG, investigate, the Office of Inspector General, investigate answers to these questions.
00:58One, why were Potomac TRACON, Philadelphia TRACON, and New York TRACON, the control towers in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York,
01:07excluded from the FAA's list of hard-to-staff facilities even when there was a clear shortage?
01:13They gave 13 other facilities bonus pay so they could attract more people.
01:20Why not New York, Washington, and Philadelphia where it's worse?
01:24Second, what was the plan?
01:26What's the plan to reduce decades-old technology and equipment and infrastructure at airports?
01:31One of the reasons Newark had a problem was a copper wire burnt.
01:35Did they ever hear of fiber optics over there at the FAA?
01:40And three, what is the plan to quickly fill critical leadership vacancies?
01:46Members have been fired in the FAA. Others have quit and have just discussed.
01:53Well, there's a lot of vacancies, especially in the higher positions.
01:58We need to fill them. What's the plan?
02:01Other airports across the nation could see similar problems like Newark if the FAA does not take this investigation seriously.
02:07We need respect again.
02:09We need respect for questions at the moment.
02:10Episode 4