FAA watchdog opens audit on Westbury air traffic controller transfers

The Federal Aviation Administration’s official watchdog has opened an audit into the agency’s decision to relocate air traffic controllers from a facility on Long Island to Philadelphia in July 2024.

When the FAA relocated the dozen controllers responsible for flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport last summer, it said doing so would help boost staffing levels at the chronically understaffed agency. But the controllers’ union opposed it, saying it would actually make the staffing situation even worse.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy requested the audit Monday to see if the move had a role in communications and radar outages at the Newark airport in April and May, according to the FAA’s inspector general’s office.

"These events have raised questions about FAA’s management of the relocation, including impacts on system redundancy, controller staffing and training, and operational resilience," the inspector general’s office said in a statement.

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), who sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, toured the Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Westbury — a cavernous building, set back behind high barbed-wire fencing, where the controllers were relocated from — on Tuesday.

The decision "not only uprooted civil servants and their families, taking them from their friends and their lives and their neighborhoods, but it also put the safety of our airspace at risk," she said at a news conference afterward.

An FAA spokeswoman said in a statement "we welcome feedback and will cooperate fully with the audit."

While some controllers work in airport towers where they can physically see airplanes, many actually operate from off-site facilities like the one in Westbury, where they rely on radar and radios.

The FAA justified the relocation to Philadelphia last year by saying it would allow controllers to reside in an area where the cost of living is lower than Long Island. But even with a $100,000 incentive package, many of the existing controllers didn’t want to leave.

Then on April 28 and May 9, controllers in Philadelphia responsible for Newark experienced radar and radio outages that led to flight delays, cancellations and questions about safety. The outages were caused by a faulty communications line between Westbury and Philadelphia installed after the relocation of controllers, Newsday previously reported.

Gillen said bringing the controllers responsible for Newark back to Westbury makes sense because it will allow them to work from the same room as controllers for nearby Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports.

“[If] there's a momentary glitch like we saw, where they lose control or lose communication with the airplane ... they can just yell over and say, Hey, what do you have going on?" she said.

Erick Carlo, a controller union representative who works in the tower at Kennedy, declined to comment on the audit on Tuesday, but said it highlights the broader issues of staffing shortages and outdated equipment at the FAA.

"A lot of air traffic controllers are now working 10-hour days, six-day work weeks, which is the absolute limit we can work," Carlo said. "It's very concerning in regards to the burnout."

By Peter Gill

peter.gill@newsday.com