Runway 4L/22R at Newark Liberty Airport (KEWR) has reopened, nearly two weeks ahead of schedule. The runway had been closed for a $121 million rehabilitation project, which has contributed to delays and scheduling chaos at EWR that dominated the national news cycle for several days. Other factors included air traffic control staffing shortages and ATC communications equipment outages.
The runway is currently available for takeoffs only, according to an CBS News report, but is expected to begin receiving landings soon. Traffic at EWR had been limited to 56 movements per hour and that restriction will remain in place for the time being, expecting to ramp up to 68 movements per hour as of next week.
Chris Rocheleau, acting FAA administrator, said, “We’re going to have our technical operations people go out and certify that new runway for arrivals as well. It’s going to take a little bit longer, simply because we want to make sure that the equipment there is certified, is flight checked, and so that’s going to take a few more days.”
The FAA also reported that Verizon is replacing unreliable communication lines that have contributed to some of the outages. The new fiberoptic lines are expected enter service in early July.
EWR is a main hub airport for United Airlines. UAL CEO Scott Kirby said the airline expects it will ramp up its flight schedule as of June 15, the original target date for the completion of runway work. “We did get well behind on bookings because of the perception issues around Newark recently,” he said. “So that means more seats are available, which means that the fares are better than they’re probably going to ever be.”
New York-area ABC7NY helicopter reporter (and aviation enthusiast) John Del Giorno has been closely monitoring the situation at EWR, reporting on radio and television and updating followers through his Facebook posts. He added this anecdote: “I had good info that two United flights had been selected to ‘reopen’ the runway. Somehow, for some reason, Spirit Airlines 2543 slipped ahead of United 2434 and became the first flight to depart on the new runway.” He said one possible reason is that some airlines’ flight management system databases might have not yet shown that the runway was reopened and so could not program a flight plan that started there.
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