Aug 28 (Reuters) - A telecom frequency outage prompted

the Federal Aviation Administration Thursday to halt arriving

flights at Newark Liberty International Airport for more than an

hour, the latest tech issue to snarl flights at the airport near

New York City.

Flightradar24, a flight tracking site, said flights to

Newark -- the United Airlines hub -- are currently

halted and flights already in the air to Newark are holding but

departures appear unaffected.

The FAA said delays for arriving flights are averaging 158

minutes and rising as flights resume after a halt of about 75

minutes.

There were two serious communications outages for air

traffic controllers overseeing Newark's airspace in April and

May that disrupted hundreds of flights.

In May, the FAA ordered flight cuts at Newark following

a series of major disruptions and

has proposed to extend those through

late October.

The FAA last year relocated control of the Newark

airspace to Philadelphia to address staffing and congested New

York City-area traffic.

Since then, the FAA has upgraded communications

technology to prevent reoccurrences but it is still working to

add air traffic controllers.