United Airlines cutting daily flights at Newark Airport
United Airlines is cutting daily flights this summer at its Newark Liberty International Airport hub, to avoid the travel snarls that have been seen recently.
Over the July Fourth weekend, United experienced massive travel disruptions at Newark Airport amid bad weather, congestion and a shortage of air traffic controllers.
It will be cutting the number of daily flights from 410 to 390 in August. Typically, United has handled 435 flights a day at Newark.
According to data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, United accounts for 68% of flights at the airport.
“We are now doing more than ever to mitigate the impact of weather, congestion and other infrastructure constraints at Newark and, frankly, to build a schedule at Newark that is more manageable, given the frequency of weather events and the very real operating constraints that exist there even on a blue-sky day,” United CEO Scott Kirby said during the airliner’s second-quarter earnings call.
Andrew Nocella, United’s chief commercial officer, said the cuts would continue this summer “until we can come up with a creative solution to the constraints that we’re all facing there.”