The Federal Aviation Administration is installing new surface movement radar at Newark Liberty International Airport as part of a wider push to replace older air traffic control surveillance with digital systems. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford discussed the upgrade in Newark on Tuesday, linking the move to efforts to give controllers clearer views of aircraft and vehicles on the ground in poor weather and at night.
Bedford said the technology reduces controller workload and forms part of broader modernisation work across the U.S. air traffic system. The FAA plans to deploy 53 surface movement radars at 44 of the country’s busiest airports. The agency is also targeting 5,000 new high-speed network connections, 27,000 new radios and 612 state-of-the-art radars by 2028 as it rebuilds key parts of the national system.
The Newark installation comes after recent telecom and radar outages disrupted traffic around Newark and Washington, adding urgency to the safety and resilience case for the programme. The Reuters report behind the event describes the upgrade as part of a transition from rotating radar toward more digital surveillance tools, rather than a single standalone national launch.