Chaos at New Jersey's Newark Airport causing headaches for SFO travelers

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Hundreds of flights have been delayed or canceled out of Newark Airport over the past few days.

The busy airport, that sits right outside New York City, has been hit with several problems happening all at once.

"It seems to be coming to a head this week because of a dramatic shortage of air traffic control workers. They've also decided to do construction on one of the runways. And then there's been a lot of weather," said Clint Henderson.

Henderson works for travel website, The Points Guy.

He says while the lack of air traffic controllers is a nationwide problem, it's especially bad at Newark.

Airline analysts say this meltdown that's happening at Newark Airport has been going on for quite some time now.

And, unfortunately for travelers, I'm told it might not end any time soon.

"This is an issue that has no short-term solution. They're talking about training and investments in technology, but as you know those things take years to roll out," Henderson said.

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Closer to home at SFO, some travelers were feeling the impact.

"We got a delay this morning and that they were pushing it back by seven hours. And then luckily they put us on another one. But it's just kind of been a whole mess. We have a connection that we're going to miss," said Cole Lewis.

Lewis and Andrew Pettit were supposed to fly out of Newark to Hawaii Tuesday morning.

The pair say they began getting texts as early as Monday telling them their flight would likely be impacted.

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After sitting at the airport all day, they finally made it out of the East Coast, but not before missing their connection here in the Bay Area.

"I mean we've traveled pretty frequently through the airports and I've never had delays or a weird airport experience like that," Lewis said.

And with no end in sight for the problems plaguing Newark, Henderson says he's urging people traveling to New York to consider all their options.

"I'm actually telling people who are at all nervous or risk adverse, not to fly into Newark. Not just because of delays and cancellations, but also just for basic safety reasons," he said.

On Tuesday, over 300 flights were delayed either coming into or out of Newark.