During the briefing, the officials called for a multi-billion-dollar investment into updating the U.S.’s “incredibly old” air traffic control systems.
“What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system,” Duffy said during the Friday night briefing. “Let’s not do a patchwork, a fix to a system that’s critical for every single family.”
“I want $50 billion,” he said.
The One Big Beautiful Bill invests $12.5 billion to overhaul America’s
outdated and failing air traffic control systems. This long-overdue
modernization fulfills President Trump’s vision to bring safety,
efficiency, and world-class innovation to America’s skies.
Modernizes Air Traffic Control Systems: Delivers a $12.5 billion investment to update our ATC systems, replacing aging and failing infrastructure at the FAA.
Critical Updates for Air Safety: Replaces outdated radar systems, telecommunications, and traffic control centers—some dating
back to the 1960s.
Replaces Floppy Disks and Copper Wires: Ends the use of decades-old tech that costs taxpayers over $100 million per month in upkeep.
Any competent leader would ask for an investigation in order to get at least a process correction out of it. By saying "there's nothing to see here", I'm even more curious now.
From the article (from the press conference)
And then from 2025 where the funding of the FAA was listed as a win in the One Big Beautiful Bill.. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/WH-OBB... outdated and failing air traffic control systems. This long-overdue modernization fulfills President Trump’s vision to bring safety, efficiency, and world-class innovation to America’s skies. back to the 1960s. (to that last point - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-faa-says-it-will-phase-o... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50388001 )A nationwide outage helmed by buffoons from the same party would indicate otherwise.
We too know how much squawking they would do if it was the other team at the helm
Any competent leader would ask for an investigation in order to get at least a process correction out of it. By saying "there's nothing to see here", I'm even more curious now.