Overhaul of the troubled US air traffic control system will revolutionize the industry, Trump says

Amid safety concerns from a spate of plane crashes and near misses, President Donald Trump said Thursday that a planned massive overhaul of the U.S. air traffic control system will revolutionize flying.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was expected to reveal details of the multibillion-dollar plan Thursday afternoon following recent deadly crashes and technical failures that have put a spotlight on the outdated network.

The president said that the U.S. was in the market to buy a “gorgeous, brand new system.”

“The new equipment is unbelievable what it does,” he said from the Oval Office. He began to say it may even alleviate the need for pilots before adding, “In my opinion, you always need pilots. But you wouldn’t even have to have pilots. This system is so incredible what they can do.”

The aging air traffic control operations and its struggles to handle more than 45,000 daily flights have come under renewed scrutiny since the midair collision in January between a military helicopter and a commercial airliner that killed 67 people over Washington, D.C.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee estimated last week that it might cost $12.5 billion to overhaul the air traffic control system, but that estimate was developed before the Transportation Department revealed the details of its plan, so it’s not clear if that number is reasonable.

Following January’s crash, Trump promised to fix what he called “an old, broken system” and to tackle the nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers while blaming the previous Biden administration for both problems. He repeated those claims Thursday.

But the weaknesses within the air traffic control system have been known for many years and highlighted in hearings before Congress and government reports. The fact that the air traffic control system was struggling to keep up with increasing air traffic was recognized in the 1990s — long before either Trump or Biden took office.

The Trump administration’s overhaul plan will need backing from Congress and enough funding to be more effective than previous reform efforts during the last three decades. Already more than $14 billion has been invested in upgrades since 2003 but none have dramatically changed how the system works.

The lack of controllers and technical breakdowns came to the forefront in recent weeks when a radar system briefly failed at the Newark, New Jersey, airport, causing a wave of flight cancellations and delays.

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Associated Press reporter Will Weissert in Washington contributed.