NEWARK, N.J. -- After its best operational summer at its largest East Coast hub, United Airlines wants to get the word out: Newark is back.
The airport -- and United by extension because the airline is Newark's largest tenant -- took a public relations hit in May when a combination of runway repairs and tech outages resulted in rampant flight delays and cancellations.
The FAA's implementation of a flight cap helped Newark stabilize operations, as did an accelerated timeline on the runway project. The result was a relatively delay-free summer that United executives boasted about at a celebratory event at Hangar 54 on Tuesday.
United CEO Scott Kirby, who called Newark the airline's "crown jewel," said Tuesday the airport had gone eight days in a row without a ground stop.
Jon Gooda, United's vice president of Newark hub operations, said, "It's no secret to people in this room that Newark faced challenges this year. Despite those challenges, I knew in my heart that this team was going to rise to the occasion and make history in our operation, and they did."
Kirby and others made reference to Newark now being "on equal footing" with the New York area's two other major international airports, JFK and LaGuardia. Those airports are capacity-controlled, which limits takeoff and landing operations. And now Newark is capacity-controlled, too, at least temporarily. The FAA has limited takeoffs and landings to 72 per hour until October 2026.
United, citing data from masFlight, said that its flights out of Newark arrived on time more often between June 2 and Aug. 31 than those of other airlines from LaGuardia or JFK.
Kirby also said that the FAA's air traffic control operation for Newark was "rapidly getting staffed up" and that the government agency is making investments in technology, including a fiber-optic network installed in July to support air traffic control.
Kirby said the FAA's investments are enabling United to "grow our schedule back as big as we would like it to be." He envisions more international service from Newark, and said United is working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to secure more gates for international flights.
United plans to bring back service to Greenland for another season of summer flying in 2026.