Adds United CEO email, Buttigieg response, update on Newark flights in paragraphs 4,7,18

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Monday it was convening an emergency task force and fast-tracking urgent steps to prevent additional telecom outages at the facility overseeing Newark air traffic after three incidents have shaken public confidence.

Acting Federal Aviation Administration head Chris Rocheleau said the agency was naming an emergency task force to help address telecom issues at the facility overseeing Newark Liberty Airport traffic that includes L3Harris Technologies LHX.N, Verizon VZ.N and other technical experts. He pledged to be "transparent about the progress that we are making."

Officials said the FAA could experience other telecom failures.

"We could see other situations like this around the country because the system is old," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a press conference.

Duffy said he expects testing will be completed in two weeks after the FAA installed fiber lines to replace copper wire to boost resiliency at the air traffic control center in Philadelphia that handles Newark flights and a successful software patch. "We are going to fix Newark," Duffy said. "Our redundant lines are now working."

Duffy called the current system "a lemon" akin to a faulty used car and blamed former President Joe Biden and the prior transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, for not doing more to address telecom issues and not ensuring the reliability of telecommunications before it transferred control of Newark airspace to the Philadelphia facility last year.

In response, a spokesperson for Buttigieg said: "Secretary Duffy has a tough job. But he needs to spend more time doing what the American people are paying him to do — fix problems — and less time blaming others."

STAFFING ISSUES

The FAA relocated control of the Newark airspace to Philadelphia last year to address staffing and congested New York City area traffic. The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers below targeted staffing levels.

The FAA earlier said it will propose flight cuts at Newark, citing air traffic controller staffing, runway construction and equipment issues as it continued to delay flights on Monday.

Low air traffic control staffing for Newark resulted in average delays of more than two hours late on Monday with more than 20% of all flights delayed and 87 canceled, according to data provider FlightAware.

"The airport clearly is unable to handle the current level of scheduled operations," the FAA said ahead of a two-day meeting starting on Wednesday with airlines to discuss flight cuts.

The FAA is proposing an hourly arrival rate of no more than 28 flights and corresponding departure rate of 28 flights during construction on a runway at Newark.

That limit would be in place until June 15, and on weekends from September through the end of the year. The FAA is separately proposing capping the scheduled rate of arrivals and departures at 34 each per hour through October 25 when construction is not ongoing.

On Sunday, the FAA said a new telecommunications issue at the Philadelphia facility forced the agency to issue a 45-minute ground stop and slow flights in and out of Newark airport.

On Friday, the Philadelphia facility suffered a 90-second radar and telecommunications outage, the second in two weeks after a serious outage on April 28.

The latest incidents highlight the air traffic control network's aging infrastructure and come after Duffy last week proposed spending billions of dollars to fix it over the next three to four years.

The FAA said last week it was taking immediate steps to address ongoing problems that have disrupted hundreds of flights, especially from United Airlines UAL.O, the largest carrier at the airport.

United has sharply cut flights and wants the FAA to impose new limitations on Newark flights to address ongoing delays.

United on Monday sent emails to 3.7 million New York-area customers and passengers with upcoming Newark flights seeking to reassure them about safety. "The truth is that all these flights in and out of (Newark) are absolutely safe," United CEO Scott Kirby said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Bill Berkrot and Jamie Freed)

((David.Shepardson@thomsonreuters.com; 2028988324;))