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US needs billions for new radar, air traffic control

facilities,

telecommunications equipment

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FAA remains 3,500 controllers behind targeted staffing

levels

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Congress must decide how much to spend to fix system

By David Shepardson and Rajesh Kumar Singh

WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) -

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday will

call for tens of billions of dollars to overhaul America's

strained air traffic control system to address crumbling

infrastructure, dramatic staffing shortfalls and failing

technology.

Key questions remain unanswered: Will it work? How long

will it take? How much will Congress agree to spend? How will

the government avoid the mistakes of prior reform efforts?

Duffy, who

will be joined by the CEOs of the largest five

U.S. airlines on Thursday to unveil the Trump

administration plan, has said the project will take three or

four years.

"You are starting to see cracks in the system," Duffy said

last week. "Everything -- the hardware and the software -- has

to be redone."

The Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control

network's manifold woes have been years in the making, but a

rush of high-profile mishaps, near-misses and a catastrophic

crash in January have spiked public alarm and prompted new calls

for action.

A mid-air collision between an American Airlines ( AAL )

regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter in January killed

67 near Reagan Washington National Airport. On Thursday, another

Army helicopter forced two flights to abort landings at Reagan.

Last week, controllers overseeing traffic at Newark Liberty

International Airport lost communications with airplanes for at

least 30 seconds because of a telecommunications and radar

failure. Since then, hundreds of flights have been canceled or

diverted at the airport just outside New York City.

A series of near misses between airplanes in recent months

has further exposed the strain on air traffic control facilities

and raised questions about pilot training amid repeated calls

for reforms for years.

Fixing the system is a daunting task. Many of the 520

airports overseen by the FAA need new runway safety technology

so controllers don't rely on binoculars to see airplanes.

In 2022, for example, the FAA said it was working to end a

long-ridiculed, decades-old practice of air traffic controllers

using paper flight strips to keep track of aircraft. But

adopting the change at 49 major airports will take the FAA until

late 2029.

FOUR DAYS OFF EACH MONTH

The FAA is currently about 3,500 air traffic controllers

short of targeted staffing levels and nearly all control towers

have staffing shortages. FAA controller staffing has been

relatively flat in recent years -- despite significant hiring --

and is down 10% from 2012 because of retirements and trainees

failing to complete requirements.

Newark's airport has become the poster child for air traffic

control issues. After the 30-second communications lapse,

several controllers took leave on the same day, compelling

United Airlines to cut 35 daily Newark flights -- or 10%

of its schedule.

At many facilities, controllers are working mandatory

overtime of up to 12 hours a day and six-day work weeks to cover

shortages. That leaves just four days off each month for what

air safety experts widely agree are high-stress jobs.

The FAA, which said in March it planned to hire 2,000 air

traffic controller trainees this year, will offer

retirement-eligible controllers who are under the mandatory

retirement age of 56 a lump sum payment of 20% of their basic

pay for each year they continue to work.

The Government Accountability Office in September said the

FAA must take "urgent action" to address aging air traffic

control systems.

GAO said 51 of the FAA's 138 air traffic control systems are

unsustainable. The FAA told GAO last year not to plan to

complete modernization projects for many systems for at least a

decade.

Former Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen told Reuters

"it's been a journey of incrementalism with the FAA -- some

things we got right, some things left to fester over time." One

big question, he said, is who will oversee the project.

Trump has said a large company like Raytheon or IBM ( IBM ) could be

in charge.

It takes years for the FAA to replace outdated systems.

In January 2023, the failure of a key pilot messaging system

disrupted more than 11,000 flights in the first nationwide U.S.

ground stop since 2001. The FAA said last month it now plans to

deploy a new "Notice to Airmen" system by September after two

recent failures of the current system.

A November 2023 report from an independent FAA panel found

the agency's air traffic communications systems have been

outdated for years and the agency can no longer get spare parts

for many systems.

It cited aging FAA air traffic facilities with leaking

roofs, broken elevators and heating and air conditioning systems

and ancient surveillance radar systems that must soon be

replaced at a cost of billions of dollars.

In 2017, then President Donald Trump called for privatizing

the air traffic control system by 2020 -- a plan that went

nowhere.

"We're proposing to take American air travel into the future

finally," Trump said in 2017. "Our air traffic control system is

stuck painfully in the past... We're still stuck with an

ancient, broken, antiquated horrible system that doesn't work."