FAA Seeks $10B

The Trump administration is asking Congress for another $10 billion to rebuild the air traffic control system after a year of outages, delays and staffing strain. (fox4news.com) Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the new money would fund the next phase of the overhaul, with much of it aimed at new software to manage traffic more efficiently. Congress already approved $12.5 billion in July 2025 for equipment upgrades and staffing. (rollcall.com) Federal officials said that earlier funding has already replaced nearly half of the system’s copper wiring with fiber-optic cable, converted about 270 radio sites, installed surface-awareness systems at 54 airports and moved 17 towers from paper strips to electronic ones. (rollcall.com) Air traffic control is the network that tracks planes, spaces them out and clears them to take off and land. The Federal Aviation Administration says many of the tools behind that system still rely on aging radios, telecom lines, radar and software that were built for an earlier era of flying. (faa.gov) The FAA’s 2025 overhaul plan called for replacing telecom links at more than 4,600 sites with fiber, wireless and satellite systems, swapping out 618 aging radars, adding 25,000 radios and 475 voice switches, and expanding runway-safety tools to 200 airports. (faa.gov) Newark became the clearest example of the problem after the radar system used by controllers handling Newark traffic went offline for at least 30 seconds on April 28, 2025. The FAA said the Philadelphia facility handling Newark depended on radar data sent over old lines from New York, including copper phone lines. (pbs.org) The FAA responded by planning new fiber connections between New York and Philadelphia, adding data lines and slowing Newark traffic to keep operations safe. On May 7, 2025, Newark led the nation with 41 canceled departures and 43 canceled arrivals, according to the FAA account cited by the Associated Press. (pbs.org) Duffy said the infrastructure build funded so far should take about two and a half years, but the software still needs more money to be developed, tested, deployed and taught to controllers. The administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request separately sought $4.9 billion for a modernized air traffic control system. (rollcall.com) FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said this week that the United States still has an “analog national airspace system” and tied the push for faster modernization to repeated breakdowns and a system that he said is “failing every day.” NPR reported Newark is now being used as the case study for why the broader rebuild cannot wait. (nprillinois.org) Congress now has to decide whether to provide the extra $10 billion on top of last year’s $12.5 billion. Duffy said the goal is to have the hardware and software come together within roughly two and a half years into what he called “a brand new system for America to use.” (fox4news.com)