#294: Newark Liberty Leads On-Time Flights, Qantas' 1st Airbus A350-1000ULR Takes Flight

But as we get into our stories for this week, yes, um, there is an airport that happens to take some cake, or I guess, um, not necessarily...

Well, maybe there's physic- physical cake involved.

Uh, but more, uh, [laughs] figuratively, it's a remarkable turnaround at one of the nation's busiest airports.

Just over a year ago, Newark Liberty International Airport was a byword for travel chaos, long delays, diversions, cancellations.

Well, today, it's leading every major airport in the northeast for the f- for the most on-time flights so far this year, and the carrier that's behind that comeback, of course, United Airlines, Newark's largest carrier.

United says it posted its best on-time performance ever at the airport in April and May while flying nearly 5.8 million passengers through the hub.

Now, we'll rewind to last spring, and that picture, of course, was very different as we covered here on Simple Flying.

Newark was hit by, uh, just s- several different problems all at once.

Um, FAA radar and ra- uh, radio outages, air traffic control staffing shortages, and ongoing runway construction.

Together, they triggered massive delays and cancellations.

So what changed? Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the FAA stepped in.

They boosted staffing, upgraded the technology at the airport, and crucially, capped the number of flights so the schedule actually matches what Newark can physically handle.

United CEO Scott Kirby was on the ground in Newark earlier this week to mark the moment and thanked the airline's roughly 15,000 local employees.

Kirby credits the FAA's actions and his workforce for the turnaround and calls Newark the, quote, "crown jewel of United's n- uh, international network." And it is a powerhouse.

If you've ever been to Newark, I mean, that's pretty much all you see for the most part, is... or at least on the north side of the airport, all of these United aircraft.

Newark connects travelers to nearly 320 cities across the, uh, the Americas and the Caribbean and serves as United's gateway to 42 destinations across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and India.

That's more transatlantic destinations than any other carrier flying out of the New York City area, including 15 cities no other US airline serves at all.

Now, the momentum is carrying into the summer.

United just flew a record 3 million passengers across its network over m- the Memorial Day, uh, holiday, with nearly 70% of customers arriving on time.

And the airline expects more than 53 million travelers between this month and August.

To win those flyers, United is lear- is leaning on technology and onboard upgrades, high-speed Starlink Wi-Fi now rolling out across its fleet, and more than 800, uh, aircraft with Bluetooth seatback screens, uh, part of the United Next initiative, um, interior initiative, and bigger overhead bins and a mobile app that tracks your bag, flags security wait times, and even holds a connecting flight when your inbound flight is running late.

So the bottom line here, an airport that was making headlines for all the wrong reasons last year is now setting the pace for the entire northeast, and United is betting that re- reliability keeps its customers coming back.

And I think that's, sums it up perfectly.

Um, you know, Newark was making headlines again for all of the wrong reasons, and one of the things that I didn't mention was the runway situation as well.

Um, and so there were a lot of flights that were arriving late because of the runway congestion there too.