A Holiday Weekend Will Be a Test for Newark Airport

Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at the outlook for air travel this weekend, especially at Newark Liberty International Airport. And we’ll see how a Times Square office building is turning into housing.

The busiest runway for departures at Newark Liberty International Airport is closed. There are lingering concerns about communications disruptions between air traffic controllers and airplanes. There are staffing shortages at control centers, including the one guiding planes to Newark.

Sheldon Jacobson, a travel security and safety expert, had already called the problems at Newark “a perfect storm” — and that was 11 days ago, before a real storm rolled in ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. And the Memorial Day weekend is traditionally the beginning of the summer travel season.

His prediction for the next few days at an airport whose troubles are in the spotlight? “Weather accounts for three-quarters of delays,” he told me on Friday.

The prediction from the National Weather Service was for a messy start to the Memorial Day weekend: Mostly cloudy skies at Newark today, with a 30 percent chance of rain, mainly this afternoon, and the possibility of isolated showers on Saturday. Sunday and Monday will be warmer, with some sun on Saturday and more on Sunday and Monday, said James Tomasini, a meteorologist with the agency.