Airline CEOs at nine of the largest passenger and cargo carriers in the United States are calling on Congress to fund billions of dollars’ worth of upgrades to the U.S. air travel system.
The current air traffic system is “failing Americans,” the airline CEOs wrote in an open letter to Congress on May 21. The jointly written letter references recent high-profile issues, such as the ongoing air traffic difficulties at Newark Airport, the prolonged shortage of air traffic controllers, and a January 2023 outage of a critical FAA system that sends notices to commercial pilots called NOTAM.
“Aviation remains the safest mode of transportation in the U.S., but for it to remain so, serious upgrades need to happen now,” the CEOs write, noting that across the country, the FAA’s technology is “wildly out of date.” Currently, air traffic controllers have to contend with corroded copper wiring, floppy disks, and physical strips of paper with flight numbers, according to the letter.
Among the CEOs who co-signed the letter are the top executives of American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Atlas Air, FedEx, UPS, and Airlines for America, an industry lobbying group.
The antiquated technology across the country has been in the spotlight in recent weeks as New Jersey’s Newark Airport has struggled with multiple equipment failures that have prevented air traffic controllers from speaking to pilots or seeing planes on their radar screens for 30 to 90 seconds at a time. Those issues, along with low staffing numbers, have caused a ripple effect of chaotic flight disruptions at the airport for weeks on end.
In response to the havoc at Newark, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled a plan in early May to completely overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system in three to four years. As part of the plan, Duffy and the Department of Transportation would modernize critical technology, including:
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Replacing antiquated telecommunications equipment with new fiber, wireless, and satellite technologies at over 4,600 sites, 25,000 new radios, and 475 new voice switches.
Replacing 618 radars that have gone past their life cycle.
Addressing runway safety by increasing the number of airports with Surface Awareness Initiative (SAI) to 200.
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Building six new air traffic control centers for the first time since the 1960s and replacing towers and TRACONs.
Installing new modern hardware and software for all air traffic facilities to create a common platform system throughout towers, TRACONs and centers.
Addressing the challenges facing Alaska by adding 174 new weather stations.
Of course, all of these improvements don’t come for free: the total project is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars. The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure has already floated $12.5 billion for the overhaul as part of President Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration legislation, called One Big Beautiful Bill. That legislation is still being deliberated on by the House.
Even if that funding comes through, the Modern Skies Coalition, a consortium of organizations and aviation experts from across the industry, estimates that “a minimum of $18.5 billion in additional emergency funding” would be required to complete the entire overhaul, on top of the $12.5 billion earmarked in Trump’s bill.
Despite the costly price tag, the airline CEOs say that these upgrades cannot wait any longer. “Improving technology is critical to recruiting the air traffic controllers of the future,” the CEOs’ letter states. “Our controllers are doing an amazing job under stressful working conditions. They do not need the added stress of potential technology failures. Aviation is an industry of innovation, and the FAA needs the ability to procure 21st-century equipment and transformational technology solutions to efficiently and strategically handle 21st-century flight volumes.”
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