America’s air traffic control systems are outdated, understaffed, and underfunded, risking more deadly plane accidents in the near future if things do not change, aviation industry leaders say.
In light of the Trump administration laying off hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees and a recent string of deadly plane accidents, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation heard from aviation industry and labor representatives on Tuesday.
The witnesses asked Congress to allocate more money to the aviation industry, revealing that the FAA is having trouble modernizing aviation infrastructure and safety systems — many of which still use floppy disks — because it receives no steady stream of funding.
As a result, what funding the FAA does procure is spent on simply sustaining old and outdated systems, leaving little left over for capital improvement projects.
“We don’t have that multi-year procurement or capital funding that any business would do to be able to modernize,” CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association Pete Bunce said. “We pay into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, but we are not able to use it to be able to modernize the way we should. So if we get that emergency infusion of funding, and then couple that with being able to use the trust fund wisely, we can make some real change.”
Committee member Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., punctuated the testimony by projecting a picture of an air traffic control (ATC) scope, showing how few details air traffic controllers are able to see with the 1990s technology still used in control towers.
A witness from the Government Accountability Office, which did a risk assessment of all 138 air traffic control systems in 2024, painted an even starker picture: about 37% of systems have been deemed “unsustainable” by the FAA, and 39% of systems as “potentially unsustainable.”
Of those 105 impacted systems, 58 have critical operational impacts on the safety and efficiency of the national airspace.
But lack of funds to invest in infrastructure and safety upgrades is only part of the picture, witnesses argued. The lack of air traffic control tower staffing is another major issue, with one air traffic controller often doing the job of two people, as happened in the deadly midair collision of a commercial flight and Army helicopter in late January.
Dave Spero, President of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) Dave Spero emphasized the need for increased staffing, lambasting the Trump administration for laying off employees deemed “non-essential.”
“Haphazardly eliminating positions and encouraging resignations are having a demoralizing effect on the workforce—they’re a distraction for employees performing safety-critical duties,” Spero said. “All parts of this aviation ecosystem work together to accomplish a critical goal: the safety of the American flying public. The chain provided by these safety-focused professionals must remain strong, and every link intact.”
None of the laid-off FAA employees were air traffic controllers.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy recently accelerated the air traffic controller hiring process to help speed up implementation of the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act, which requires the FAA annually hire the maximum number of air traffic controllers from the agency’s ATC training academy.
“We want action, not political debate. It’s not a partisan or jurisdictional issue,” President of Airlines for America Nick Calio told the committee. “What we need to accomplish boils down to getting an emergency funding proposal signed into law that will ensure enough skilled people, controllers and technicians, to work.”
