Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of Newark’s airport for the “next several weeks” as it struggles with radar outages and other issues, including another Sunday that again slowed air traffic.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, Duffy said he will meet this week with all major carriers flying through Newark Liberty International, New Jersey’s largest airport. He said the number of flight cutbacks would fluctuate by time of day with most targeting afternoon hours when international arrivals make the airport busier.
In addition to equipment outages, the airport has been been beset by flight delays and cancelations brought on by a shortage of air traffic controllers.
“We want to have a number of flights that if you book your flight, you know it’s going to fly, right?” he said. “That is the priority. So you don’t get to the airport, wait four hours, and then get delayed.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reported a “telecommunications issue” as the latest setback Sunday, impacting a facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark airport. An FAA statement said the agency briefly slowed air traffic to and from the airport while ensuring “redundancies were working as designed” before normal operations resumed.
Infrastructure issues are increasingly a key concern at airports around the country.
In an unrelated incident, hundreds of flights were delayed Sunday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — one of the world’s busiest — because of a runway equipment issue. The FAA said in a statement that it temporarily slowed arrivals into Atlanta while technicians worked to address the problem.
In Newark, Sunday’s disruptions came two days after radar at the Philadelphia facility went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday, an episode that was similar to an incident on April 28.
The Trump administration recently proposed a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the US air traffic control system, envisioning six new air traffic control centers and technology and communications upgrades at all of the nation’s air traffic facilities over the next three or four years.
The FAA said last week that it slows the rate of arrivals into Newark to ensure safety whenever staffing or equipment issues arise. The agency also noted that frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful, prompting some air traffic controllers to take time off “to recover from the stress.”
“While we cannot quickly replace them due to this highly specialized profession, we continue to train controllers who will eventually be assigned to this busy airspace,” the FAA said in a May 5 statement.
On average, there had been 34 arrival cancelations per day since mid-April at Newark, according to the FAA, with the number of delays increasing throughout the day from an average of five in the mornings to 16 by the evening. The delays tended to last 85 to 137 minutes on average.
Duffy said in his TV appearance Sunday that he wants to raise the mandatory retirement age for air traffic controllers from 56 to 61, as he tries to navigate a shortage of about 3,000 people in that specialized position.
And he also spoke of wanting to give those air traffic controllers a 20 percent upfront bonus to stay on the job. However, he says many air traffic controllers choose to retire after 25 years of service, which means many retire around the age of 50.
“These are not overnight fixes,” Duffy said. “But as we go up — one, two years, older guys on the job, younger guys coming in, men and women — we can make up that 3,000-person difference.”
Adding more air traffic controllers is in contrast to a top priority of the Trump administration — slashing jobs in nearly all other federal agencies.
However, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Duffy deserves credit for putting “caution tape” around FAA safety functions and separating those personnel from cost-cutting by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE.
Kirby said United has already reduced its schedule at Newark and will meet with Duffy later this week. He expects a deeper cut in capacity to last until June 15 when construction work on one of Newark’s runways is expected to be complete, though he thinks some reductions will last throughout the summer.
“We have fewer flights, but we keep everything safe, and we get the airplane safely on the ground,” Kirby said. “Safety is number one, and so I’m not worried about safety. I am worried about customer delays and impacts.”

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump says he’ll sign an executive order on Monday that, if implemented, could bring down the costs of some medications — reviving a failed effort from his first term on an issue he’s talked up since even before becoming president.

The order Trump is promising will direct the Department of Health and Human Services to tie what Medicare pays for medications administrated in a doctor’s office to the lowest price paid by other countries.

“I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World,” the president posted Sunday on his social media site, pledging to sign the order on Monday morning at the White House.

“Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before,” Trump added.

His proposal would likely only impact certain drugs covered by Medicare and given in an office — think infusions that treat cancer, and other injectables. But it could potentially bring significant savings to the government, although the “TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS” Trump boasted about in his post may be an exaggeration.

Medicare provides health insurance for roughly 70 million older Americans. Complaints about US drug prices being notoriously high, even when compared with other large and wealthy countries, have long drawn the ire of both parties, but a lasting fix has never cleared Congress.

Under the planned order, the federal government would tie what it pays pharmaceutical companies for those drugs to the price paid by a group of other, economically advanced countries — the so-called “most favored nation” approach.

The proposal will face fierce opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.

It was a rule that Trump tried to adopt during his first term, but could never get through. He signed a similar executive order in the final weeks of his presidency, but a court order later blocked the rule from going into effect under the Biden administration.

The pharmaceutical industry argued that Trump’s 2020 attempt would give foreign governments the “upper hand” in deciding the value of medicines in the US. The industry has long argued that forcing lower prices will hurt profits, and ultimately affect innovation and its efforts to develop new medicines.

Only drugs on Medicare Part B — the insurance for doctor’s office visits — are likely to be covered under the plan. Medicare beneficiaries are responsible for picking up some of the costs to get those medications during doctor’s visits, and for traditional Medicare enrollees there is no annual out-of-pocket cap on what they pay.

A report by the Trump administration during its first term found that the US spends twice as much as some other countries in covering those drugs. Medicare Part B drug spending topped $33 billion in 2021.

More common prescription drugs filled at a pharmacy would probably not be covered by the new order.

Trump’s post formally previewing the action came after he teased a “very big announcement” last week. He gave no details, except to note that it wasn’t related to trade or the tariffs he has announced imposing on much of the world.

“We’re going to have a very, very big announcement to make — like as big as it gets,” Trump said last week.

He came into his first term accusing pharmaceutical companies of “getting away with murder” and complaining that other countries whose governments set drug prices were taking advantage of Americans.

On Sunday, Trump took aim at the industry again, writing that the “Pharmaceutical/Drug Companies would say, for years, that it was Research and Development Costs, and that all of these costs were, and would be, for no reason whatsoever, borne by the ‘suckers’ of America, ALONE.”

Referring to drug companies’ powerful lobbying efforts, he said that campaign contributions “can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Republican Party.”

“We are going to do the right thing,” he wrote.