US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check
- Reference: 1746816671
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/05/09/transportation_secretary_air_traffic_upgrade/
- Source link:
Air traffic control systems managed by the Federal Aviation Administration are a [1]notoriously outdated , with decades-old hardware and software contributing to [2]nationwide ground stops and ultimately putting travelers at risk of being stranded in airports, stuck on runways, or, god forbid, forced to sleep at the airport. Despite that, modernization efforts have been slow, with past projections suggesting that many core systems wouldn't be fully replaced [3]until well into the 2030s .
Duffy's [4]proposal , unveiled Thursday, would put modernization measures into overdrive, outlining a three-year framework to overhaul key components of the National Airspace System (NAS). The plan aims to reverse decades of underinvestment and outdated infrastructure that, while still safe, increasingly causes delays, outages, and inefficiencies across the system.
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"Without modernization efforts – including upgraded technology, improved air traffic management, and enhanced safety measures – the risk of system failures, disruptions, and security vulnerabilities will only increase," the Department of Transportation said in its proposal.
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The DoT's NAS upgrade plans call for eliminating legacy time-division multiplexing systems and shifting to IP-based telecommunications, with new fiber, satellite, and wireless networks supporting over 30,000 services nationwide. Analog radios will be replaced with VoIP-capable equipment, legacy automation systems will be consolidated into two common platforms, and paper flight strips still used in towers will finally go digital under the Terminal Flight Data Manager program.
Some 618 aging radar systems, many dating back to the 1970s and well past their intended lifespan, would be replaced under the plan. The FAA also aims to deploy new automation systems to overhaul flight and airspace management, including modernizing traffic flow platforms and consolidating legacy control software. Information display systems from the 1990s — some still reliant on floppy disks and CDs — would finally be upgraded, and dozens of air traffic control facilities, which the proposal describes as "deteriorating at alarming rates," would be rebuilt or replaced.
Building this new system is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now
Many of the systems targeted in the proposal were not expected to be fully replaced until the 2030s or later under historical FAA funding levels. The DoT now aims to accelerate these upgrades within a three-year framework running through 2028.
"Building this new system is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now," Duffy said in a press [8]release .
Commit now, Duffy urges Congress
Projects like these have a tendency to stall out. By way of example, officials have been trying to update the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which failed in early 2023 and caused the first nationwide ground stop since 9/11. The outage made international headlines and delayed thousands of flights. While Congress had introduced bills in 2019 and 2021 to push for improvements, it wasn't until after the 2023 debacle that a task force was finally mandated to recommend fixes.
President Biden signed that last bill in June 2023, but the task force has flown extremely under the radar - there's no press record of its recommendations, no easily findable website, nothing. And a task force isn't exactly an allocation of funds. If it's this hard to upgrade one single system, updating all the antiquated stuff air traffic controllers and pilots are forced to use sounds like Mission: Impossible.
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Duffy's well aware of the history. "I can't just announce [the proposal] to you and say it's going to happen in three to four years," Duffy [10]said during a Thursday press conference. "It's going to take the help of the Congress to make that happen."
[11]90-second Newark blackout exposes parlous state of US air traffic control
[12]Report claims FAA ignores most whistleblower complaints
[13]Please fasten your seatbelts. A third of US air traffic control systems are 'unsustainable'
[14]FAA closes investigations into Blue Origin landing fail, Starship Flight 7 explosion
So, to try and give his proposal the best chance of success, he wants Congress to finance the entire project up front.
"When you give small tranches of money year over year, politics change … and it never gets done," Duffy lamented. Some permitting reform will be required too. "If we go through the permitting process and don't get the money this is going to be the same old thing - it's going to take us 10, 15 years to build this," he said.
However, the proposal itself does not come with a price tag, so there's no telling how much money that will end up being. Neither the DoT nor the FAA responded to questions for this story. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/07/faa_notam_air_traffic/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/11/faa_grounds_all_us_departures/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/24/us_air_traffic_control_system_upgrade/
[4] https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/brand-new-air-traffic-control-system-plan
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aB566E8kYPLX6harNY3G-wAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aB566E8kYPLX6harNY3G-wAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aB566E8kYPLX6harNY3G-wAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-transportation-secretary-sean-p-duffy-unveils-plan-build-brand-new-state-art-air
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aB566E8kYPLX6harNY3G-wAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.youtube.com/live/fEqNa_hC2lE?si=WBZc-jT8E5MsMAY1&t=979
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/newark_airport_outage/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/31/faa_whistleblower_complaints/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/05/faa_air_traffic_control/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/01/faa_closes_blue_origin_and/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Amazing ..
LOL, unicorns are not real.
No amount of money can remake the national ATC in 3 years. And that's IF they DON'T contract ANY of the big tech companies.
And yes, the anti-science stance of the current admin dooms it to failure from, well, right this moment.
Re: Amazing ..
I suspect the fact that Newark lost radio contact with all aircraft AGAIN this evening won't do any harm to the likelihood of the money being approved.
Re: Amazing ..
It is a great idea in theory. In reality they are "decalcifying" by firing anybody they don't like and everybody who doesn't conform (ie not white and male). People might not like "DEI" or affirmative action programs, but hiring people who only say that Trump is the Pope is not the solution to anything.
highly regarded AI
They already started handing it over to the AI, that's why we are in this mess ( I told you guys to avoid US airspace when they handed it over, and fired most air traffic controllers).
They will give it to the x bot and pocket the blood money. We are dealing with career criminals and frauds. It's what they do. Crime.
Re: highly regarded AI
Bollox, mate. The decay in US air traffic systems has been going on for decades, and if you're looking for a trigger point, that would be when a pea-brained Hollywood actor fired a whole load of air traffic controllers back in 1981, and the system never really recovered from that. It might have, but Covid effectively repeated the body blow of losing a lot of experienced staff. And once talent walks out the door, it rarely walks back in. And rebuilding from the inside is sloooooowwwww.
Press release from US Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy
We have spoken to Birmingham City Council and will be using Oracle
Corruption - all the way down
Oh. now the executive recognises that congress aportions funding for federal agencies.
Am currently watching latest Legal Eagle (featuring Liz Dye) on YouTube - general tone is Project 2025 is using Trump seizing control of the spending (and not spending it on anything) as means to reach their ends.
Do they understand what's needed?
I'm sure they've had a lot of 'expert' input from the tech bros about all the wonderful easy improvements that could be done to this legacy gear.
The sad reality is that ATC systems are exotic stuff on a par with avionics (if anything much worse due to uptime and other factors), and the engineering required is not trivial. And there are a lot of things you don't use and don't do because your performance and reliability requirements are on a level the average techy type probably can't even start to comprehend. Something like VOIP for example can be a non-starter.
Doubtless the plan is to try to go quick, cheap COTS on the basis of 'how hard can it be?' and it'll go badly wrong and those responsible won't even begin to understand why.
And it's not like you can afford to blow it all up a few times and claim it was all useful tests, or spend years with it maybe working under endless beta; if this stuff is in service it has to work, first time and every time.
You just know that some of the chancers/self proclaimed geniuses will have stuck their noses into this despite having zero clue and this not being a realm where their bluffs can work.
Re: Do they understand what's needed?
"You just know that some of the chancers/self proclaimed geniuses will have stuck their noses into this despite having zero clue and this not being a realm where their bluffs can work."
Cough...'bigballs'...cough!
But it's all OK, he'll know everything there is to know about 'agile techniques', so it'll be done fast and quickly (three years, hah six months max, promise), yes stuff will break (and alas in this case there will be mid-air collisions and lots of people will die; but that's a small price to pay for Musk to make more money! Yes?
Cynic, me, absolutely not, why would you even think that?
Re: Do they understand what's needed?
Continuity is vital. On one of the recent Newark outages, the cause was reported a bad electrical connection on a piece of equipment that had just passed its EOL date. So actually, one essential job is just keep up with the maintenance of the current system, as unsexy as that is. Then they need to add in new replacement systems, while keeping the old ones as backup for a year or so while bugs are worked out.
Sorry is just me or this sounds like a scam? Like no one asking for unlimited money can actually be legit, even charities usually ask for a fixed number!
Bring back IBM SAGE, but make SAGE an AI (already has a great marketing name) and give it control of the golden air defense network Trump will have SpaceX build.
Check
Has anyone shown Sean a plane?
Amazing ..
... something coming out of this administration I can get behind. Honestly, I'm in favor of a President shaking up the way government functions and trying to decalcify the bureaucracy. It's just a shame this one comes with a side order of culture war and anti-science bullshit.