FAA launches Newark airport task force with Verizon, L3Harris executives

The Trump administration on Monday announced the creation of an emergency task force comprised of executive experts from Verizon, L3Harris and the Federal Aviation Administration to address ongoing telecommunications issues at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the goal is to add three new telecommunications connections between New York and Philadelphia to ensure communications redundancy, so that if one line goes down, the others will stand up.

While he did not provide an exact timeline for completion, Duffy said he spoke to Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg on Sunday and Verizon is working "as fast as possible." 

The announcement follows three incidents in the past two weeks where air traffic controllers tasked with guiding planes in and out of Newark lost their main telecommunication lines. The first two events, on April 28 and May 9, involved 90-second outages in which controllers lost the ability to see and talk to planes. 

The outages sparked hundreds of flight delays and disrupted travel for thousands of people. Some air traffic controllers have taken time off to recover from the stress of the outages, according to the FAA.

When the main telecommunications line went down for a third time on Sunday, the backup line functioned properly and controllers did not lose all communications, since the FAA had implemented a software patch, Duffy said during a briefing with reporters. Still, air traffic controllers were concerned and issued a ground stop at the New York-area hub for 45 minutes, according to Duffy.

During the briefing, FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau said the new task force is comprised of the "right technical experts" with the goal to "keep focus on this every single day and to be transparent about the progress that we're making." 

L3Harris is an FAA contractor, and Verizon supports the telecommunication lines that run into the Philadelphia facility where controllers oversee planes at Newark, according to Duffy.

The task force's creation comes less than a week after the Department of Transportation announced a new plan to spend tens of billions of dollars to modernize the U.S. air traffic control system. Duffy said he is waiting on Congress to approve the plan.

Duffy also plans to convene a "delay reduction" meeting on Wednesday with all of the airlines that fly out of Newark airport.

"The goal is to have a manageable number of flights land in Newark," Duffy said. "Families shouldn't have to wait four or five hours for a flight that never takes off."

— CNBC's Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.