OAN Staff James Meyers
2:39 PM – Thursday, May 8, 2025
President Donald Trump applauded his administration’s efforts to revamp the U.S. air traffic control system, as the Department of Transportation unveiled its new three-year plan to build a brand-new, “state-of-the-art” system on Thursday.
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed the proposal on Thursday, which would replace the current one that was put in place by former President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
Trump remarked that the former transportation secretary under Biden “didn’t have a clue” what he was doing during his tenure.
“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“Decades of neglect have left us with an outdated system that is showing its age,” Duffy said, noting that building the new system “is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is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 proposal, the FAA would replace its infrastructure, including software, hardware, radar and telecommunications networks, to help manage modern travel.
Trump officials also said that the current system was built “for the past,” but the newest proposed system is built “for the future.”
The plan will secure facilities by ensuring they are equipped with modernized 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.
Overall, the new plan entails four infrastructure components: communications, surveillance, automation and facilities.
By 2028, officials are planning to replace current telecommunications systems with new wired, satellite, and fiber technologies at over 4,600 sites, 25,000 new radios, and 475 new voice switches. By 2027, 618 radars will also be replaced.
Additionally, the Transportation Department proposed building six new air traffic control centers for the first time since the 1960s.
The announcement comes as the Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, continues to deal with continued outages since last week. Air traffic controllers directing flights into the international airport lost communications — and live feeds on their screens went blank for close to 90 seconds on April 28th.
“We don’t have a radar, so I don’t know where you are,” one controller was heard saying on a recorded transmission.
According to the FAA, the outage lasted close to 30 seconds, and took another 30-60 seconds for planes to reappear on controllers’ screens,
Duffy spoke about the incident on Thursday, explaining that it’s a notable example of why the system needs to be updated.
“If we don’t actually accomplish the mission that we’re announcing today, you will see Newarks not just in Newark, you’ll see Newarks in other parts of the country because it’s an aging system,” Duffy said.
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