the Federal Aviation Administration is slowing arrivals and departures at Newark Airport today in response to growing safety concerns following an incident last week where air traffic controllers lost all radar and radio communication with pilots flying in and out of the busy airport The FAA is also adding traffic controller staffing which has been blamed for the long delays and hundreds of canceled flights there The chaos continues as the US finally rolls out its Real ID program that's been in the works for two decades and could add to the confusion for flyers Ted Goldberg has the latest from Terminal A in Newark Another day another round of canceled flights at Newark airport They canled us last night at 8:00 or 8:30 and then 2 hours later said they'd booked us on a flight that's 2 hours later When we saw we were cancelled we thought "Oh God."

You know cuz we haven't got a lot of time 4 hours before my flight they just said it was canceled and booked another one I figured somewhere between whatever air traffic control issue and then who knows whatever Newark problems they've been having The first day of Real ID enforcement was overshadowed by the ongoing wave of delays and cancellations at New Jerseys largest airport According to the website FlightAware nearly a hundred flights were cancelled Wednesday morning as a closed down runway and a shortage of air traffic controllers have hobbled Newark airport I actually had a friend that was traveling from Alabama and she had to stay here like for 12 hours because her flight had been delayed like two times So yeah she told me that it was really bad So I actually flew in yesterday Um and I uh actually experienced quite a few delays on my flight in here yesterday morning Um so it's been a little bit tough delay here and there but at the end of the day uh got here two weeks ago I'm like I have like a trip to um San Antonio I have like 3 hours and 5 hours when I come back um to come here like 3 hours delay Nobody was turned away for not having real ID They were just subjected to increased security Some flyers were savvy enough to get their Real ID well ahead of today's deadline I've had a Real ID for years now so really hasn't affected me They've been doing a Real ID for a long long time in Colorado Comes automatically with a driver's license here in Colorado The Real ID roll out went overall pretty smoothly at Newark Airport at least at Terminal A And from what I could see travelers I spoke with had other issues with the airport that had nothing to do with Real ID We all five of us said we will never come to Newark New Jersey to fly in or out again You have thoughts about this airport Would you like to tell me some of them yes It's horrible We didn't have no directions of where to catch the shuttle We had three attendants that worked here All of them were on their cell phones Shouldn't have been It's a chaotic time at Newark Their air traffic controllers who were moved to Philadelphia last summer say they briefly lost radar and communication with flights for more than a minute last Monday Their union says the stress of the outages led some air traffic controllers to take a leave of absence making staffing shortages even worse Secretary of Transportation Shawn Duffy spoke on CNN yesterday about the need for investing in new infrastructure for airplanes because we have such old infrastructure It's 25 to 50 years old depending on what you're talking about Um that's why you can't let it get to this point right where you see issues like Newark Could that happen somewhere else it's possible You can't snap your fingers and lay fiber or bring in you know new radios or or new um new radar Those things take time and we're going to put the time and the money in and you're going to start to see results um sooner than 3 or 4 years as this buildout happens The situation we're seeing is not unique to Newark but it is more extreme and intense at Newark Airline industry analyst Henry Hardelt says these fixes won't come cheap and the FAA will need to lobby for those resources It's also going to have to go to Congress and make the case that the FAA needs long-term funding multi-year funding to invest in the necessary technology to make sure that the controllers are using reliable equipment state-of-the-art equipment Secretary Duffy says a plan will be rolled out on Thursday to calm things down at Newark He warned that it will be expensive but it could help make traveling in and out of Newark a little less miserable in the future At Newark Airport I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News