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The Federal Aviation Administration is scheduled to mandate a 10% flight reduction at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports. That includes Newark Liberty International Airport. How will that affect travelers flying United Airlines, the airports largest domestic and international carrier? United accounts for 69% of the Newark airports domestic and international flights, according to Port Authority data. No other airlines comes close to that flight volume. Of the more than 280,000 total commercial flights at Newark this year, nearly 189,000 were United domestic and international flights. But on Friday, Newark Airport will see a third reduction in flights this year. If you’re booked to fly United after the FAA’s 10% reduction starts on Friday, don’t panic, the airline has plans to lessen the impact, said CEO Scott Kirby. “Any customer traveling during this period is eligible for a refund if they do not wish to fly – even if their flight isn’t impacted. That includes non-refundable tickets and those customers with basic economy tickets,” he said in a letter to employees. The effect isn’t as wide reaching as it may seem. United’s long-haul international and it’s hub-to-hub flying will not be impacted by the FAA’s schedule reduction, Kirby said. “Instead, we will focus our schedule reductions on regional flying and domestic mainline flights that do not travel between our hubs,” he said. “Despite the schedule reductions, United and its United Express partners will still offer about 4,000 flights per day to fly our customers to their destinations.” Some travel and airport associations have expressed concern about the timing—three weeks before Thanksgiving. But Kirby counters that the reduction actually coincides with when United has more available seats for holiday travelers. “Because of the early November timing, our flights have more seats available than before the summer, meaning we should be able to find seats for many customers even if their flight is canceled,” he said. Customers can track how their flight is affected by using United’s app, website and signing up for push notifications to get airline communications if their flight changes, and to get rebooking options. “We want to provide them with as much information as we can and in a way that’s simple and easy to understand,” he said. This was coupled with other strategies the airline implemented after the FAA reduced flights—once due to runway reconstruction and again following three separate air traffic control equipment failures. Newark was plagued in the spring by continuing shortages of air traffic controllers and a series of frightening outages at the air traffic control center handling flights to and from the airport, which led to blackouts of radio and radar coverage. That, combined with an ongoing paving and rehabilitation project on a main runway led to the FAA to reduce the hourly flight volume at Newark. While the FAA has slightly increased the number of hourly departures and arrivals from 68 to 72, that cap remains in place until October 2026.
