President Donald Trump touted his administration’s efforts to rebuild and modernize U.S. air traffic control, as the Department of Transportation rolled out its three-year plan to build a brand-new, ‘state-of-the-art’ system to address critical safety needs, while blasting former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for having ‘no clue.’
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Thursday unveiled the proposal, which would replace the current, antiquated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system and ‘enhance safety in the sky, reduce delays and unlock the future of air travel.’
‘Under President Trump, America is building again,’ Duffy said Thursday, upon rolling out the new proposal for a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a brand new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system.’
‘Decades of neglect have left us with an outdated system that is showing its age,’ Duffy said, noting that building the new system ‘is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now.’
Under the new air traffic control system proposal, the FAA would replace infrastructure, including radar, software, hardware and telecommunications networks, to manage modern travel.
Officials say the current system was built ‘for the past,’ but the new proposal is to build a system ‘for the future.’
The plan would ensure facilities are equipped with better technologies to reduce outages, improve efficiency and reinforce safety.
‘We’re going to be buying a brand-new, state of the art system that will cover the entire world,’ Trump said earlier Thursday.
The plan consists of four infrastructure components: communications, surveillance, automation and facilities, according to the Transportation Department.
Officials plan, by 2028, to replace current telecommunications systems with new fiber, wireless and satellite technologies at more than 4,600 sites, 25,000 new radios and 475 new voice switches. By 2027, 618 radars will also be replaced.
The plan also would address runway safety by increasing the number of airports with Surface Awareness Initiative to 200. Officials expect this to be complete by 2027.
The Transportation Department also proposed building six new air traffic control centers for the first time since the 1960s. It also proposes replacing 15 towers and 15 co-located TRACONs, or Terminal Radar Approach Controls, which are facilities that manage air traffic in the airspace surrounding busy airports.
Officials also proposed the installation of new modern hardware and software for all air traffic facilities, which would create a common platform system throughout all towers, TRACONs and centers.
