OPINION:
Relief is in sight for Americans suffering from long delays and cancellations at airports. On Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced plans for a “brand new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system.” All that’s left is for Congress to board the Trump administration’s flight into the future.
Flanked by labor and industry, Mr. Duffy said, “Decades of neglect have left us with an outdated system that is showing its age.” He called revitalization “an economic and national security necessity” that must happen now. “The American people are counting on us, and we won’t let them down.”
As if to underscore Mr. Duffy’s call to action, New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport twice lost radar and communication with aircraft hours after he spoke. United Airlines, the largest carrier at Newark, canceled 35 daily round-trip flights indefinitely after 20% of air traffic control stations crashed.
Last year, a Government Accountability Office report found that a third of the Federal Aviation Administration’s systems were unsustainable. As the summer travel crunch looms, this has resulted in more problems at airports and a ripple effect at connecting hubs worldwide.
Air traffic control relies on copper wires rather than fiber optics, Watergate-era floppy disks and radar, and paper flight strips dating back to the Great Depression. Although the White House and industry stress that flying is safer than ever before, close calls and near misses warn of turbulence ahead.
The situation “is not safe … for the flying public,” one controller told NBC News. “Don’t fly into Newark.’” On May 3, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, posted on X that “we need to reverse the decades of staffing decline at the FAA.” He backed Mr. Duffy’s call for “supercharging hiring.”
Newark, the second-busiest airport in the New York system, started feeling the strain last summer. The trigger was the Biden administration’s relocation of 12 air traffic controllers from the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control to Philadelphia in the hopes of increasing efficiency.
Instead, the situation got worse. “Newark airport,” United CEO Scott Kirby wrote last week on the company’s website, “cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there.” Nationwide, more than 90% of air traffic control centers are understaffed.
Airlines for America President and CEO Nicholas Calio was among the trade representatives urging congressional support alongside Mr. Duffy. “We can’t kick the can down the road,” he said. “We need to do it now.”
Shortages have worsened because America is down to just one place, in Oklahoma, to train reinforcements and because Congress allocates budgets annually. Mr. Duffy has sought up-front funding for a longer-term overhaul, allowing it to be completed in four years.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee estimated that the modernization plan will cost $12.5 billion. Mr. Duffy puts the price tag higher, but Congress will decide how much to spend as part of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to bring airports into the 21st century.
Unfortunately for passengers who spend hours sitting on hard, plastic seats staring at flight information displays, Congress moves slower than a baggage carousel. After setting a Memorial Day deadline for passage, lawmakers are now talking about pushing it to July Fourth, butting up against midterm election campaigns.
While passengers wait for Congress to deliver Mr. Trump’s “golden age of aviation,” Mr. Duffy has been doing what he can to smooth traffic. After a U.S. Army helicopter forced passenger jets headed for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to divert earlier this month, he instituted a ban on similar flights.
“Safety must ALWAYS come first,” Mr. Duffy wrote on X, noting that 67 people died over the Potomac River when a Black Hawk collided with a passenger flight in January. “No more helicopter rides for VIPs or unnecessary training in … airspace full of civilians,” he said. “Take a taxi or Uber.”
At Thursday’s event, Mr. Duffy said Americans “are blessed to have a president who actually loves to build and knows how to build” and has prioritized airport revitalization. He “doesn’t want to pass this problem to the next administration, the next secretary or the next set of victims.”
The first step to fixing a problem is to see it. The Trump administration and aviation leaders have their eyes wide open. However, if members of Congress need convincing, they might be nudged by a simple fact: The millions of Americans fuming in crumbling airports aren’t just passengers; they’re also voters.
• Dean Karayanis is a former producer for “The Rush Limbaugh Show ”and host of “History Author Show” on iHeartRadio.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.