Major aviation groups urge Congress in a joint letter to take action for more air traffic control technology and staffing. The US aviation sector on Wednesday called for “robust emergency funding” from Congress for air traffic control technology and staffing after a series of crashes that have raised alarm.
Airlines for America, the Aerospace Industries Association, International Air Transport Association and others, including major aviation unions, urged Congress in a joint letter to take action, noting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) faces serious technology needs and is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels.
“We must support air traffic controller workforce hiring and training, modernize and deploy state-of-the-art air traffic control facilities and equipment,” said the letter seen by Reuters from groups representing American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Boeing, Airbus and others, adding they do not support “pursuing privatization of US air traffic control services and believe it would be a distraction from these needed investments and reforms”.
US Department of Transportation, FAA and key House and Senate committees did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. A persistent shortage of controllers has delayed flights and, at many facilities, controllers are working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks to cover shifts.
Earlier this month, the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said he was reconsidering rules that allowed air traffic control supervisors to reduce staffing at Washington’s Reagan National airport before a fatal army helicopter-plane collision that killed 67 people in January.
The FAA last year cut minimum flight requirements at congested New York City-area airports through October, citing air traffic controller staffing shortages. In March, then president Joe Biden proposed spending $8bn over the next five years to replace or modernize more than 20 ageing air traffic control facilities and 377 critical radar systems.
A quarter of all FAA facilities are 50 years or older. A 2023 report noted air traffic control facilities with leaking roofs, broken heating and air conditioning systems, and old surveillance radar systems that must soon be replaced at a cost of billions of dollars.
The report said the FAA’s communications system has been outdated for years and the agency can no longer get spare parts for many systems. An outage of a pilot alerting system in January 2023 led to the first nationwide US ground stop since 2001, disrupting more than 11,000 flights. The system suffered a brief outage earlier this month but without significant impacts.
Meanwhile the Democratic US senator Richard Blumenthal called on the US transportation department on Wednesday to reverse the decision to fire more than 300 employees at the FAA. The FAA last Friday fired more than 300 probationary maintenance mechanics, aeronautical information specialists, aviation safety assistants and management and program assistants as part of broad efforts to streamline government operations.
The Trump administration has said no one at the FAA with a “critical safety” position has been fired as it cuts the federal workforce, but some FAA jobs that were eliminated had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations, according to their union and former employees.
