Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Unveils Update For Newark Airport After Recent Travel Chaos

8 months ago

During Monday’s press briefing, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy provided an update on the situation at Newark Airport after recent delays and cancellations.

Transcript

00:00All right. Hello, everyone. Sean Duffy here. Thank you for coming out. We're going to give

00:05you an update on Newark. I'm here with Chris Rushilow, the acting administrator of the FAA.

00:12Sarah McKeon from the Port Authority. She's the Newark Airport Director of Aviation,

00:18as well as Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines, and Tom Kane, one of New Jersey's

00:25finest in Congress. So I appreciate them all being here with us. Today, we're celebrating

00:30the opening of Newark's runway. And this is a 60-day project that actually is completed 13 days

00:41early. And we all couldn't be more grateful to the Port Authority, everyone who worked so hard,

00:47the unions, the labor that worked to make sure this happened. They were working around the clock,

00:5124-7, to make sure they could complete the project before that 60-day time frame. And

00:59what is interesting is, I think you were going to beat the time frame by a couple days, but when they

01:04saw some of the issues that were happening here at Newark, they actually ramped it up even more.

01:11And again, this is a great day to celebrate the opening of the runway. And it goes to a broader

01:19point in regard to the issues that we're having here. What you're seeing is everyone who touches

01:24the problem is giving their full-hearted effort. They're leaning into the problem and helping fix

01:31the problem. From the Port Authority, again, 13 days early, opening the runway today. But you've also

01:38heard we have a telecom problem. And so we had a glitch in the system. The FAA did a remarkable job

01:44fixing the glitch in our software. But then Verizon stood up and said, you know what? We are going to

01:51make this a priority. We're going to fix the not-so-great line that goes from the Philly

01:55Tracon up to N90 here in New York. And they did that in record time, in less than a month's time.

02:02Now, that new fiber line's not stood up yet because we're testing it. Right now it has to be tested.

02:08The FAA has some pretty laborious testing procedures, which is, we appreciate that,

02:14Chris. Thank you. But that process is underway and, again, happening very quickly. By the way,

02:21after that, we're laying fiber from N90 to Newark. But the line from N90 to Newark has not been a real

02:29issue for us. So, again, everybody who touches the problem stands up and helps fix the problem.

02:36So, we're going to see you.

02:42We're going to see you.

02:44We'll see you in the next video.

02:47We're going to see you.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Unveils Update For Newark Airport After Recent Travel Chaos

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