Rory O'Neill explains Newark Airport concerns

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ronie Old joins us now in a couple of stories,
what's going on with Newark Airport and also some summertime
travel coming up for everybody, right, welcome in, thanks for
being here.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey there, JT. Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
So I was talking to my son. This was literally
the day that they were having trouble where the tower
was trying to talk with the pilots and listen, I
don't know where you are. I can't see our radar
is down. So I knew Michael was going to New
Jersey to talk to a kid he's recruiting, and I said, hey,
where are you? He goes, I'm getting ready to take off.
I said, where are you going? He goes flying into Newark.

(00:31):
I'm like okay, He goes, why what's the matter? I said,
I'm just having a tech issue. I think everything's going
to be fine. So he lands and he pulls up
the story and he's like, oh my gosh, why didn't
you tell me? He said, well, you're on the tarmac
getting ready to leave. I'm not going to put you
in fear the way. And so are they getting things
fixed here? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, big meeting today with the FAA secretary Duffy and
the heads of the airlines that fly in and out
of Newark. Essentially the temporary solution maybe that in addition
to make those technological investments to improve and fixed communications,
they're also going to reduce the schedule. You know, you've
got one of the runways at Newark is currently closed,

(01:10):
so they're going to bring it down to twenty eight
arriving domestic flights per hour, twenty eight departures domestically per hour,
and then work on trying to get more staffing because
you know, they've got what thirty eight jobs there at
Newark's and thirty eight controllers are needed to operate that
facility that handles Newark traffic. Only twenty four of the

(01:33):
jobs are actually filled, so there's a third of the
jobs are eight.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, you know, I got to tell you if it's
that crazy, I know, shutting down the whole airport until
things are better is a big move, But the safety
involved in the risk factor, I mean, and when you
said twenty eight flights per hour, that's basically one every
two minutes. I guess I'd hate to see the numbers

(01:58):
on real busy airports Atlanta, O'Hare LaGuardia. What are they
running there? One every you know, thirty seconds. I mean
that's pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, and that's really it's twenty eight arrivals and twenty
eight departure, so fifty six planes going in and out,
so it's essentially one plane per minute.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of activity to me. So yeah,
you know, with the FAA, I tell you President Trump
he's a problem solver in all categories. He is basically
just cleaning things up from this disastrous last four years.
And when you start talking about the FAA, I mean
it should happen long before Biden. I mean, if we're
in this deep of a mess, you really can't point fingers.

(02:35):
The president at the time was Joe Biden, and prior
to that was Trump, and prior to that, you know,
I don't know how far back we can go where
the FAA is just out of date and antiquated systems.
I mean, they're still using floppy discs for Avon's sake.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
So well, and you know, we don't have to necessarily
go to the White House. Let's take some finger pointing
over to Congress, because they approved the money for these.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Things, right, So yeah, well, I'm glad somebody's finally getting
some movement going here and improving things. All right, Speaking
to travel, let's talk about despite the inflation and the
constant worry about our four to one k's in the market,
Americans don't want to sit around, you know. I think
we learned our lesson with COVID. So where are we
going and what's the best place to go this summer?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, so we're seeing a huge travel demand. TRIPAA for
Memorial Day weekend expects all new record travel topping forty
five million. I'm still stoked or surprised that next weekend
there is Memorial Day weekend. Wow, super early this year.
But yeah, Orlando was the top destination for families this summer. Atlanta, Washington,
d C. Honolulu, and Austin, Texas also there in the

(03:39):
top five. Birmingham comes in at number fifty one on
the list of the top one hundred destinations. And I
know a spot special to you, Pensacola. They're coming in
at number sixty six on the list.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah. I do like the coast, that's for sure, no doubt.
In Panama City's got their new big international airport, I
say new relatively speaking. So yeah, that panhandled part of Florida.
You know it's good stuff right there. Roy, Thank you
so much, buddy, I sure do appreciate you