The FAA has extended operating restrictions at Newark Liberty International Airport and related staffing relief at John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Ronald Reagan Washington National through the end of the summer 2027 scheduling season, according to Federal Register notices published Tuesday.
At Newark, scheduled operations will remain limited to 36 arrivals and 36 departures per hour from 6 a.m. through 10:59 p.m. from Oct. 25, 2026, through Oct. 30, 2027. According to the FAA, the Philadelphia TRACON, which took over Newark’s Area C in July 2024, has 74 certified professional controllers against a target of 114. Area C has 28 certified controllers against a target of 46. The agency also said arrival on-time performance at Newark remains at 75 percent under the current limits.
In a related notice, the FAA also extended staffing-related relief at JFK, LaGuardia and some affected DCA operations through Oct. 30, 2027. The agency said the New York TRACON has 129 certified professional controllers, or 57 percent of its 226-controller target, and does not expect to reach 70 percent staffing until after 2027. The relief allows carriers to reduce some operations without losing priority for future schedules, a step the FAA said is intended to better align scheduled traffic with what the system can handle.
The FAA actions were published the same day the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, Space and Innovation was scheduled to examine airspace safety and recent close-call incidents across the National Airspace System. The hearing follows heightened attention on controller staffing, runway incursions and collision risk after several recent accidents and near-misses, including the fatal January 2025 midair collision near DCA and the March 2026 Air Canada Express collision at LaGuardia.
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