Federal transportation officials are promising to spend billions of dollars to upgrade the nation’s air traffic control system, which aviation officials said are some of the radars, radio equipment and control towers in use for decades.
Ed Bolen, president of the National Business Aviation Association, a professional association and lobbying group for private business aviation, said the proposed improvements that U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are proposing are desperately needed.
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“I think we’re at a point where we need to move forward and make this a national imperative,” he said. “I think there have been advances that has been made, but we haven’t really had what we are getting today, which is a plan that is clear in its specificity. It has accountability, it has time frames, and it has the financial investments that are necessary to get this done and get it done soon.”
According to CNN, the new system that Duffy and the DOT are proposing would include 25,000 new radios, 475 voice switches, 618 new radars and six air traffic control centers, all intended to be fully operational by 2028.
Duffy said he wants Congress to fund the program once and let the DOT begin, rather than allocating money on a piecemeal basis, as has been the case for the last 20 years and not making all of the improvements at once.
“I can’t do by myself,” Duffy said. “I don’t have billions of dollars in my wallet. I need them to do it. I need them to give me the tools. But I’m begging them to let me do this and pay this forward for the families. Pay it forward for our families who travel.”
Both government and private sector aviation officials said the recent high-profile problems at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey, where the air traffic control system has failed twice recently, causing screens in control towers and other facilities to go dark, are a warning sign the system needs a significant upgrade.
“There have been advances that have been made, but we haven’t really had what we are getting today, which is a plan that is clear in its specificity. It has accountability, it has time frames, and it has the financial investments that are necessary to get this done and get it done soon,” he said.
Bolen insists the current system is safe, but he said the Jan. 29 fatal midair collision near Reagan National Airport showed there are deficiencies that must be fixed.
“Unfortunately, tragically, on the 29th all of those redundancies failed, but we have brought new people into the control tower. We have slowed operations, and I think we believe that working through the administration, working through Congress, that DCA is a safe place,” he said.
Secretary Duffy has not outlined a budget for his 3-to-5-year proposed overhaul, but experts said it will be in the tens of billions of dollars.
Bolen admits that continuing to operate the current system, while at the same time designing and building a new air traffic control system and then training the controllers on the new equipment will be a challenge, but one he believes the industry can manage.
“We’re focused on making sure that it is bringing in new technologies, new operations, so that its redundancy, its resilience and the situational awareness continues to grow as the passenger demand grows and new and diverse operations and aircraft come into the marketplace,” he said.
Duffy’s proposal is getting the political support it needs from the major passenger airlines, the unions, including the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and others, and groups like the National Business Aviation Association.
“We’ve got to get this done,” Bolen said.
“NATCA is ready to continue working with Secretary Duffy, the Department of Transportation, and the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure that all modernization efforts include involvement from the National Airspace System’s most important resource — the hardworking air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals who keep our skies safe, day in and day out,” NATCA said in a statement.
However, the union does not support Duffy’s plan to raise the maximum age of air traffic controllers from the current 56 to a higher age.
It is estimated that the current air traffic control system is short at least 3,000 controllers for the past several years. With increased recruiting and education, the FAA has managed to hire close to 2,000 men and women per year, but that number only keeps pace with retirements.
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