OPINION:
Earlier this month, the radar screens used to direct commercial airliners into and out of Newark Liberty International Airport went dark. A few days ago, radios at a control center in Denver malfunctioned, leaving 20 planes to fend for themselves.
The administration appears committed to fixing this long-standing problem before it leads to an outcome far worse than cascading flight delays across multiple states. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was summoned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday and Thursday to explain how he intends to overhaul failing systems without an Obama-style trillion-dollar stimulus spending binge.
Mr. Duffy said those big-number, headline-grabbing expenditures never produced results where it mattered. “The infrastructure didn’t rot in the last 100 days … there were four years that came before, where nothing was done. Watchdog groups have warned the infrastructure was crumbling, and nothing was done.”
Replacing the patchwork of 1970s and 1980s technology that the Federal Aviation Administration relies on to keep modern jets from crashing into one another is a delicate and costly undertaking. Worse, there aren’t enough people in the air traffic control towers using the decrepit devices.
To relieve pressure in the understaffed New York control center, the FAA moved responsibility for Newark’s airspace to the center in Philadelphia last summer. Bureaucrats under Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg didn’t bother to confirm whether Philly could handle the load. It couldn’t.
“We’re working at lightning pace to get this resolved,” said Mr. Duffy, explaining that he had fast-tracked the installation of new fiber-optic communications lines to eliminate the service disruptions.
Mr. Duffy bristled when Democrats implied that President Trump’s workforce cutbacks contributed to the failure. “We haven’t been firing air traffic controllers; we’ve been hiring them as fast as we can. I don’t know how many times I have to say it,” he said.
When Mr. Duffy learned that medical exams were delaying applications to the controller training academy in Oklahoma City by up to a year and a half, the secretary offered a bonus to doctors for rendering timely judgment about the candidates’ medical fitness.
The agency needs 3,000 additional controllers to fill air traffic towers across the country. Until that happens, existing staff must work 10-hour shifts six days a week. That kills morale. “You’ve got to pay people to stick around,” he said while offering 20% salary bonuses to experienced controllers who stay beyond the 25-year retirement eligibility.
It may sound like Mr. Duffy is on a spending spree, but he is also eliminating $9 billion in useless social justice and climate change boondoggles. “If we do more with less, that means that we’ll have additional money … to put back into the infrastructure.”
Every transportation project, including updating airports, building bridges and filling potholes, is beset by paperwork hurdles that waste resources and stall progress. Mr. Duffy explained that about 40% of federal grant spending goes not to the work itself but to the costs of hiring consultants and securing permits.
“If we can get that to 15%, that means you get to build more projects. We get more grant money out the door. … The consulting class that has built up almost seems to be bigger than the construction class around these projects,” he said.
Mr. Buttigieg, a former McKinsey consultant, did nothing to alter the status quo. Mr. Duffy, a reality TV star in his 20s, understands the real world. That may be why things are only now starting to change for the better.
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