WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration said 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 shook public confidence.

Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau said the agency was naming an emergency task force including L3Harisand Verizon and other technical experts to look into telecom issues at the facility overseeing Newark Liberty Airport traffic.

"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 installing fiber lines to replace copper wire to boost resiliency at Philadelphia.

"We are going to fix Newark," Duffy said.

Agency short-handed

Duffy called the current system "a lemon" and blamed former President Joe Biden and the prior head of the department, Pete Buttigieg, for not doing more to address telecom issues before transferring control of Newark airspace to a Philadelphia facility last year.

A spokesperson for Buttigieg did not immediately comment.

The FAA relocated control of the Newark airspace to Philadelphia to address a staffing shortage and congested New York City area traffic.

The agency is about 3,500 air traffic controllers below targeted staffing levels.

Not only does Newark have too few air traffic controllers, but its runaways are undergoing construction and it is suffering from equipment problems, said FAA officials. They continued to delay flights on Monday.

"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 agency is proposing no more than 28 arrivals per hour and no more than 28 departures per hour during runway construction.

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.

New problems

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

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

The latest incidents highlight the air traffic control network's aging infrastructure. They come after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday 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, 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.

Reporting by David Shepardson. Editing by Nick Zieminski and Bill Berkrot.