Promises made. Promises kept

OPINION:

Those of us who grew up in the 1980s know it was a period like no other. The clothes. The games. The music. Just about all of us asked for a Sony Walkman for our birthdays. Who didn’t record songs off the radio on a cassette player? Rubik’s cubes were all the rage. Weekend fun was going to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters or watching a Tom Cruise movie with friends. Family trips meant going to AAA to pick up paper maps. And many of us wrote term papers on a large computer and saved our work on a 3 and 1/2 inch floppy disk. Some of us remember the first cell phones that were as big as a brick or later came in a bag. That was all high-tech back then.

That was four decades ago a full generation.

Surprisingly, floppy disks are still being used today to run the U.S. air traffic control system.

So are paper strips and copper wires.

It has been well reported for years that our nation’s air traffic control system is in dire need of modernization.

Unfortunately, that dire need came into more focus after the tragedy of January 29 near Reagan National Airport. The NTSB is continuing to diligently investigate the causes, and their findings will help provide answers and clarity. At the same time, President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are taking action.

Days after the accident, President Trump remembered the victims as he stood before a packed ballroom at the National Prayer Breakfast. He vowed to honor their memories by making improvements to the stressed air traffic control (ATC) systems and upgrading them from “obsolete equipment.”

Shortly thereafter, Sec. Duffy appeared on Newsmax and pointed out that the old ATC systems desperately need to be modernized, and he complimented controllers who are doing a great job working with the antiquated equipment day in and day out. He ended the interview saying, “Let’s make it better.”

And just last week, Sec. Duffy joined “Fox and Friends,” where he announced the Trump Administration will build a “brand new state-of-the-art” ATC system, and pledging to act with urgency.

“Top technology is going to be deployed,” he said. “The key to this is speed technology changes and money changes administrations change. So, we have to do this really fast.”

A plan will be announced in the “next couple of days,” he added, before concluding that Congress needs to work with them to fund this effort upfront and expeditiously.

The Trump administration is delivering on its promise to protect and ensure the safety of American travelers in undertaking this historic effort. These critical changes cannot happen without the support and funding from Congress, and lawmakers are encouraged to swiftly pass an emergency supplemental funding bill to bring about this critically needed upgrade.

Emergency funding should address three key changes needed to take place in the National Airspace System:

Recruit and maintain a sufficient, skilled air traffic controller workforce

Innovate ATC technologies

Implement multi-year funding reforms that will allow the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to plan long-term capital projects

It’s no secret our nation’s air traffic controller workforce is critically understaffed and chronically overworked. Controllers across the country are forced to work 6 days a week, for up to 10 hours a day.

A June 2023 report from the DOT’s Inspector General found “FAA continues to face staffing challenges and lacks a plan to address them, which in turn poses a risk to the continuity of air traffic operations.” Today, the FAA is nearly 3,000 controllers short, and of the more than 300 ATC facilities across the nation, only 23 meet staffing standards.

We must update and upgrade the antiquated technology being used. We must replace paper strips and floppy discs with modern, 21st-century technology. This will result in more safety redundancies while reducing costs and inefficiencies as well as strengthening American competitiveness.

The FAA also needs a long-term fix to its budgeting so it can plan for the future of flight. Right now, the FAA’s budget is determined through annual congressional appropriations, and it is subject to all the federal budget discretionary spending limits. The FAA needs more long-term planning certainty, like five-year appropriations, to take up these capital projects. This would bring the FAA’s Facilities and Equipment budget more in line with other critical infrastructure programs, like the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, while Congress keeps its important oversight role.

This overhaul is a big undertaking, but it will be investing in a system that millions of Americans use every single day. These projects are long overdue, and significant revisions and investment are needed.

“I think we have a government that is far too bloated and far too fat. We can go on a diet, but that doesn’t mean we don’t see points that need investment, and this is a place that we need investment,” Secretary Duffy said this month.

We are grateful to President Trump and Secretary Duffy for their leadership and for understanding that the cost of doing nothing far outweighs the cost of investing in our national airspace. We are calling on Congress to come to the same conclusion and stand in unison with the administration to make these critical infrastructure changes a reality.

• Christine Burgeson is the Senior Vice President of Global Government Affairs at Airlines for America (A4A), the trade association for the leading U.S. airlines, both passenger and cargo carriers, which promotes safety and security. Every day, U.S. airlines transport 2.7 million travelers, 61,000 tons of cargo and operate 27,000 flights while supporting 10 million U.S. jobs and 5 percent of GDP.